had passed, and it seemed to his despairing lover’s heart that it could never be regained.  She carried her head a little higher; her smile was not the smile of old.  He shrank from telling her that nothing mattered if she cared for him as he believed she did.  She gave him no chance, for one thing, and he had never in his bitter self-communing found any words in which to tell her so.  More than ever he needed Sylvia, but Sylvia had locked and barred the doors against him.

Mrs. Owen received them in her office, and the old lady’s cheeriness was grateful to both of them.

“So you’ve been having supper with the Wares, have you, while I ate here all by myself?  A nice way to treat a lone old woman,—­leaving me to prop the ‘Indiana Farmer’ on the coffee pot for company!  I had to stay at Lexington longer than I wanted to, and some of my Kentucky cousins held me up in Louisville.  I notice, Daniel, that there are some doings at the State House.  I must say it was a downright sin for old Ridgefield to go duck shooting at his time of life and die just when we were getting politics calmed down in this state.  When I saw that old ’Stop, Look, Listen!’ editorial printed like a Thanksgiving proclamation in the ‘Courier,’ I knew there was trouble.  I must speak to Atwill.  He’s letting the automobile folks run the paper again.”

She demanded to know when Dan would have time to do some work for her; she had disposed of her Kentucky farm and was going ahead with her scheme for a vocational school to be established at Waupegan.  This was the first that Dan had heard of this project, and its bearing upon the hopes of the Bassetts as the heirs apparent of Mrs. Owen’s estate startled him.

“I want you to draw up papers covering the whole business, Daniel, but you’ve got to get rid of your legislature first.  I thought of a good name for the school, Sylvia.  We’ll call it Elizabeth House School, to hitch it on to the boarding-house.  I want you and Daniel to go down East with me right after Christmas to look at some more schools where they do that kind of work.  We’ll have some fun next spring tearing up the farm and putting up the new buildings.  Are Hallie and Marian in town, Sylvia?”

“No, they’re at Fraserville,” Sylvia replied.  “And I had a note from Blackford yesterday.  He’s doing well at school now.”

“Well, I guess you did that for him, Sylvia.  I hope they’re all grateful for that.”

“Oh, it was nothing; and they paid me generously for my work.”

“Humph!” Mrs. Owen sniffed.  “Children, there are things in this world that a check don’t settle.”

There were some matters of business to be discussed.  Dan had at last received an offer for the Kelton house at Montgomery, and Mrs. Owen thought he ought to be able to screw the price up a couple of hundred dollars.

“I’m all ready to close the estate when the sale is completed,” said Dan.  “Practically everything will be cleaned up when the house is sold.  That Canneries stock that we inventoried as worthless is pretty sure to pan out.  I’ve refused to compromise.”