For he wanted to say something to the younger man out of his twenty years of experience, something concerning the eternal conflict there is in all the professions between a man's ideals of his work and the practical possibilities in the world we have about us; something, too, concerning the necessity of yielding to the brute facts of life and yet not yielding everything. But he had learned from years of contact with men the great truth that talk never saves a man from his fate, especially that kind of talk. A man lives up to what there is in him, and Jackson Hart would follow the rule. So he dug his hands into the letters on his desk, and said by way of conclusion:-- "Perhaps we can throw some things your way. There's a little job, now." He held up a letter he had just glanced at. "They want me to recommend some one to build a club-house at Oak Hills. There isn't much in it. They can't spend more than seven thousand dollars. But I had rather take that than do some other things." "Thank you!" Hart replied with considerable animation. "Of course I want every chance I can get." He took the letter from Wright's outstretched hand. CHAPTER IX After the few swift months of spring and summer they were to be married, late in the fall. Meanwhile above the lake at Forest Park, in a broad, open field, Mrs. Phillips's great house was rapidly rising. It was judged variously by those who had seen it, but it altogether pleased the widow; and the architect regarded it--the first independent work of his manhood--with complacency and pride. Helen had not seen it since the walls had passed the first storey, when, one day late in September, she made the little journey from the city with the architect, and walked over to the house from the Shoreham station, up the lake road. It was a still, soft fall day, with all the mild charm of late summer that comes only in this region. The leaves still clung in bronzed masses to the little oaks; a stray maple leaf dipped down, now and then, from a gaudy yellow tree, and sailed like a bird along their path. There was a benediction in the country, before the dissolution of winter, and the girl's heart was filled with joy. "If we could only live here in the country, Francis!" "All the year?" he queried doubtfully. "Yes, always! Even the worst days I should not feel lonely. I shall never feel lonely again, anyway." As he drew her hand close to his breast, he said contentedly, with a large view of their future:-- "Perhaps we can manage it before long. But land is very dear in this place. Then you have to keep horses and servants, if you want to live comfortably in the country." "Oh! I didn't think of all that."