"I congratulate you, my dear. I only regret the moral effect upon Nick." "And I congratulate _you_, papa. Of course it's really yours as long as you live." "I think you have been misinformed, my dear. It was your mother's property, and is now yours." "Oh, no, papa! You have a life-interest in it. I am surprised that you did not know that." "And I am surprised that you should be, or pretend to be, ignorant that the property stands in your name. I have no more concern in it than--Miss Hunniman." "But, papa!" "We won't discuss the matter, if you please, my dear. We can gain nothing by discussion." "I don't want to discuss it, papa," taking a critical survey of her embroidery; "but if you won't go snacks, I won't. Uncle Nicholas told me never to say 'go snacks,'" she added, with a side glance around the edge of the lamp-shade. His face relaxed so far that she ventured to add: "Uncle Nicholas would be furious if we were to go snacks." Stanwood smiled appreciatively. "Nothing could be more painful to me than to miss an opportunity of making Nick furious," he said; "but I have not lived fifty years without having learned to immolate myself and my dearest ambitions upon the appropriate altars." After which eloquent summing-up, he turned the conversation into another channel. It was not long after this that Stanwood found himself experiencing a peculiar depression of spirits, which he positively refused to trace to its true source. He told himself that he wanted his freedom; he was getting tired of Elizabeth; he must send her home. It was nonsense for her to stay any longer, spoiling her complexion and his temper; it was really out of the question to have this thing go on any longer. Having come to which conclusion, it annoyed him very much to find himself enjoying her society. His depression of spirits was intermittent. One morning, when he found her sitting on the saw-horse, with the new bronco taking his breakfast from a bag she held in her lap, the sun shining full in her clear young face, health and happiness in every line of her figure, a positive thrill of fatherly pride and affection seized him. But the reaction was immediate. He turned on his heel, disgusted at this refutation of his theories. He was wretched and uncomfortable as he had never been before, and if it was not this intruding presence that made him so, what was it? Of course he was getting tired of her; what could be more natural? For fifteen years he had not known the pressure of a bond. Of course it was irksome to him! He really must get rid of it. His moodiness did not escape Elizabeth, nor did she fail to note the recent accentuating of those lines in his face, which had at first struck her painfully, but which she had gradually become accustomed to. In her own mind she concluded that her father had lived too long at this high altitude, and that she must persuade him to leave it.