“There is one unsurmountable objection to my doing all this, Eileen,” said Ernest, speaking slowly, that his voice might not tremble; “I am not going to send the Boy to his mother’s people, and I hope to sell neither the farm nor the wagon shop for many years to come.” Eileen stared at him in speechless amazement for a moment, when a new idea came to her. “Then your father left more money than was supposed, so that you can send the Boy to school and keep the place while you study, though I don’t see why you should bother with either him or it,” she said, half angrily. “Surely, after being tied, all your life, to this hill country, where nothing ever happens, you must long to get away as much as I do.” “And you wish to get away? Of course you will like to travel, but not to go away for good? Would you like to see your homestead cut up and the brook turned into a drain for a new village?” he asked, quickly drawing his eyes from hers to follow the stream. “Of course it’s a lovely old place, and I’ve had lots of good times there, but I’ve never expected to live in Oaklands all my life. Yes, I’m even willing to go for good and all, I think, quite for the sake of going. You know you were to come, too, and do fine things that should get in the newspapers. Oh, Ernest, have you forgotten all the plans we made before they built the sawmill dam, and we used to canoe from the Ridge falls quite down to Moosatuck?” The momentary warmth in her voice made him flush, even as he took a new hold on himself to keep back the words that struggled for speech. “No, Eileen, there is no more money than people thought, nor even as much. The farm must be worked, and the wagon shop also, to give us a living.” “But why should you support the Boy,” she interrupted, growing incoherent through her disappointment, “just because your father, when he was past sixty, chose to marry a young woman from nobody knows where, and then both died and left the Boy, only seven years old, who has no claim on you, to drag you down? For father told me last night what I never knew before, that house, land, and business all came from your mother’s people.” The man tingled hotly to know that his neighbour had been discussing the intricacies of his family affairs with Eileen, but in another light it gave him comfort. Her hardness toward the Boy was undoubtedly caught from her father, not born of her own feelings. But she, lashing herself more and more, persisted in her question: “Why should you support the Boy? Why do you not send him to his mother’s people, if she had any?”