“Well, after all, there’s nothing so selfish as your Puritans.  Of course, every one but yourselves is wrong.  And, of course, it doesn’t occur to you that it might be a decent thing of you to sacrifice your own scruples to do a thing that would mean so much to your father.”

Lydia looked at Kent quickly.  This was a new angle.  He would have followed this opening at once had not Amos spoken for the first time.

“Hold up, Kent,” he said in a tired voice.  “Don’t heckle her any more.  After all, I’m getting on toward fifty and I guess it’s too late for me to begin over, anyhow.  I’ll plod along as I always have.”

“Oh, Daddy!” cried Lydia, “don’t talk that way!  You aren’t a bit old.  You make me feel like a beast, between you.”

“Well, we don’t mean to,” Amos went on, “but I guess we have been pretty hard on you.”

Amos’ weariness and gentleness moved Lydia as no threats could.  Her eyes filled with tears and she crossed over quickly to the window and looked out on the starlit splendor of the lake.  In how many, many crises of her life she had gazed on this self-same scene and found decision and comfort there!

Was she selfish?  Was she putting her own desire for an easy conscience ahead of her father’s happiness?  Amos went into the kitchen for a drink and Kent followed her to the window and took both her hands.

“Lydia,” he said, “I’m awful sorry to press you so, but you’re being unfair and foolish, honestly you are.  You used to let me look out for you in the old days—­the old days when I used to pull little Patience’s carriage with my bicycle—­why can’t you trust me now?  Come, dearest,—­and next year we’ll be married and live happy ever after.”

Lydia’s lips quivered.  All Kent’s charm of manhood, all the memories of their childhood together, of his boyhood love for her and her baby sister, spoke together to win her to his desires.  And after all, what could matter so much to her as her father’s and Kent’s happiness?

“Kent!” she cried with the breathlessness of a new idea, “if I should give in and agree to take the land, would you go up there with me and turn it into a farm?”

Kent smiled at her pityingly.  “Why, Lyd, there’s nothing in that!  Why should we try to farm it?  The money is in speculating with it.  I could clear up a mint of money for you in a couple of years, if you’ll give me the handling of it.”

But Lydia’s eyes were shining now.  “Oh, but listen!  You don’t understand.  Mr. Levine drove the Indians out, by fraud and murder.  Yes, he did, Kent.  And yet, he had big dreams about it.  He must have had.  He was that kind of a man.  And if we should go up there and turn those acres into a great farm, and—­and make it stand for something big and right—­perhaps that would make up for everything!”

“Lord, what a dreamer you are, Lyd,” groaned Kent.  “Mr. Dudley, do you hear this?”