Amos grunted.  “Nothing looks good to me but this cottage.  I’d have a cow and a few pigs and some bees and the whole world could go to the devil for all of me.”

“Lydia,” said Kent, “be sensible.  Don’t talk impossibilities.”

“What is there impossible about it?” demanded Lydia.

“Gee, easy money on one side, and a lifetime of hard work on the other!  Yet you act as if there was a choice.”

“Kent, can’t you understand how I feel?” pleaded Lydia.  “Have you got a blind spot in your mind where money is concerned?  Are all the men in America money crazy like the men in Lake City?”

“Sure,” replied Kent cheerfully.  “Oh, Lydia, honey, don’t be so hard!  Look at your poor old Dad!  Think what it would mean to him.  Don’t be so doggone sanctimonious!”

Instead of looking at her father, Lydia looked at Kent, long and wistfully.  How dear he was to her!  What an inalienable part of her life he was!  What was the use of always struggling against her heart.  Kent smiled into her face.  Her lips trembled and she turned to look at Amos.  He was standing by the table, filling his pipe.  Suddenly Lydia realized how gray and broken he looked, how bent his shoulders were with work, and there swept over her anew an understanding of his utter loneliness since her mother’s and Levine’s death.

With a little inarticulate murmur, she ran across the room and threw her arms about his neck.  “Oh, Daddy,” she cried, “I’ll do it!  I’ll agree to it!  If only you’ll promise me to be happy!”

Amos dropped his pipe.  “Lydia!  You don’t mean it!  Why, my little girl!  Lord, Kent!  Isn’t she just all right!  Make me happy!  Why, Lydia, you’ve made a young man of me—­I swan—!”

Kent was holding one hand now, Amos the other.  Both looked at Lydia with radiant faces.  And she could but feel an answering glow.

“We’ll make this up to you, Lyd, old lady,” cried Kent.  “See if we don’t.”  There was a little pause during which the ice boomed.  Then,

“Well, what happens next, now you’ve settled me?” asked Lydia.

“Something to eat,” exclaimed Amos.  “I didn’t eat any supper.  I swear I haven’t eaten for months with any relish.  Lydia, make us some chocolate or something.”

As Lydia passed through the dining-room with her steaming tray, a little later, Lizzie called from her bed and Lydia set down the tray and went to her.

“Did they win you over, Lydia?” she asked.  “I went to bed so’s not to interrupt.”

“Yes, they won me,” said Lydia.

“Poor child!  I never wished harder’n I have tonight that your mother hadn’t died.  But never mind!  I guess it’s just as well you gave in.  Kent could win the heart of a bronze image.  Drat him!  Run along with the supper, Lydia.”

“Now,” said Kent, as he sipped his chocolate, “let’s lay our plans.”

“Not before me,” exclaimed Lydia.  “My one stipulation is that you don’t tell me any of the details.”