"Oh, Jarvis, you're such a good friend!--I keep telling you that, till you must be tired of hearing it." "I'm not tired of hearing it." There followed an eloquent little silence, during which Jarvis took the girl's hand in both his own and held it close in a way which meant to her the comprehending sympathy with all her joys and sorrows which he had long given her. To him it meant so much more that he dared not give expression to it in any but this mute fashion. But his heart beat high with longing and with hope, though he was firmly bidding himself wait--and wait a long time yet before he put his fortune to the touch, "to win or lose it all!" Then Sally wiped her eyes, put her handkerchief away, and faced about. "Now I can go back," she said. "Thank you for giving me a chance to put Sally Lunn in order. The mistress of a mansion like this must always have herself in hand, mustn't she?" Standing on her own hearth-stone, Sally said good-night to all her guests like the grand lady she gayly affected to be. But like the girl she was, she ran after them to wave her hand at them from the big porch, crying, "Come again--please _all_ do come again--oh, _very_ soon!" PART TWO THE LANES AND THE ACRES CHAPTER XI WHAT'S IN A NAME? "Well, here he comes," announced Maxwell Lane. With his hands in his pockets he was standing by a window which commanded a view of the gateway and approach to the house. "He 'phoned me this morning he'd be out--loaded for bear. I'll wager if he has one treatise on farming in that cutter he has forty." Sally ran to look. "I don't see anything unusual," said she, her eyes on the trim sleigh drawn by a pair of fine grays, the driver waving an arm at the window as he caught sight of the faces thereat. "Expect to see horse-hoes and threshing machines sticking out from under his furs? Jolly!--that's a magnificent fox-skin robe he has over his knees. Looks like a farmer, doesn't he, now? Think a fellow in a silk-lined overcoat and driving-gloves like those knows anything about farming?--Or ever can know?" he added skeptically. "I don't see why not. There's nothing about a silk-lined overcoat to prevent." Sally's tone was spirited. She thrust her hands into the pockets of the small ruffled apron she wore, and her elbows assumed an argumentative air. The black ribbon which tied her lengthening curly locks into a knot upon her head seemed to acquire a defiant effect. Evidently she was prepared to take sides in this matter. "If rich men's sons can learn railroading and mining and every other kind of business that soils their hands, I don't know what's to prevent one of them from learning farming." "Oh, he'll get hold of a tremendous amount of book wisdom--I'm prepared for that," admitted Max. "But it takes a practical man to be a farmer. He'll want to use up a lot of money in experiments, of course--"