Nell responded to the open life almost as fully as Pelham. Hollis was busy at school, and Sue preferred staying with her mother; so the older sister frequently had her favorite mare saddled, and covered fifteen miles before she turned the horse loose in the spring lot. Paul was on the mountain frequently, mornings and afternoons; Hillcrest Subdivision had at last been put upon the market. Most of the work fell on his shoulders; his roadster buzzed up and down the avenues, displaying the place to prospective purchasers. The lower lots sold well from the start. After six months, the investment had almost paid for itself, with less than an eighth of the land disposed of. In the early spring, Nathaniel came to Paul with a proposition to take the land off the lists as residence property, until the iron could be mined. "As soon as we sell any of the crest places, it will be too late. Now's the time; we can form our own mining corporation, and sell to South Atlantic Steel. Ore's reached the highest point in twelve years. It will mean a fortune, Paul, and the land will be just as good after the iron's out." Paul was set against the plan at first. There was more ready money in the other; it would spoil the face of the subdivision; they didn't know the ropes. The older man was insistent. "It'll mean money--big money. We can't overlook a shot like this." He went over the suggestion for Mary's benefit; she too protested. "Why, Mr. Guild, the mountain's our home; it would be dreadful to spoil it. What would happen to the cottage?" Paul cut in, shortly; his mind was quickened by opposition of any kind; and the chance for a quiet public dominance of his wife was not to be overlooked. "We don't intend to touch this part of it, Mary.... I'll tell you, Nate; we'll go over it with Ross and Sam Randolph. If there's as much in it as you say, we can't afford to neglect it." After the visitor had gone, he walked out to the front, and stared at the red smudges that marked the furnaces and rolling mills. When Mary joined him, a wrap thrown around her shoulders, he was chewing the end of an unlighted cigar. She laid her hand on his arm. "Paul, dear, you weren't angry at what I said at supper?" "Of course not. Women can't be expected to look on a business matter as men do." She shrank from the implied rebuke. "You--you aren't serious about this mining, are you?" He waved toward the dark foot of the hill with the cigar. "D'ye know what we cleared from the bottom of the Crenshaw lands, Mary, on these first sales?" She was silent. "Our share was ninety thousand dollars! And the place didn't cost fifty." "I'm sorry to see any of it go, Paul. It would make such a wonderful home for our children--when they're grown up and married, and have their own little homes within reach----"