“Have you told him —?” asked Nancy Ellen.

“Not the details, but the essentials.  He knows that I can’t go home.  It came up one day in talking about land.  I guess they had thought before, that my people were poor as church mice.  I happened to mention how much land I had helped earn for my brothers, and they seemed so interested I finished the job.  Well, after they had heard about the Land King, it made a noticeable difference in their treatment of me.  Not that they weren’t always fine, but it made, I scarcely know how to put it, it was so intangible —­ but it was a difference, an added respect.  You bet money is a power!  I can see why Father hangs on to those deeds, when I get out in the world.  They are his compensation for his years of hard work, the material evidence that he has succeeded in what he undertook.  He’d show them to John Jardine with the same feeling John showed me improved car couplers, brakes, and air cushions.  They stand for successes that win the deference of men.  Out in the little bit of world I’ve seen, I notice that men fight, bleed, and die for even a tiny fraction of deference.  Aren’t they funny?  What would I care —?”

“Well, I’d care a lot!” said Nancy Ellen.

Kate surveyed her slowly.  “Yes, I guess you would.”

They finished the dishes and went to church, because Robert was accustomed to going.  They made a remarkable group.  Then they went to the hotel for dinner, so that the girls would not have to prepare it, and then in a double carriage Robert had secured for the occasion, they drove to Bates Corners and as Kate said, “Viewed the landscape o’er.”  Those eight pieces of land, none under two hundred acres, some slightly over, all in the very highest state of cultivation, with modern houses, barns, outbuildings, and fine stock grazing in the pastures, made an impressive picture.  It was probably the first time that any of the Bates girls had seen it all at once, and looked on it merely as a spectacle.  They stopped at Adam’s last, and while Robert was busy with the team and John had alighted to help him, Nancy Ellen, revealing tight lips and unnaturally red cheeks, leaned back to Kate.

“This is about as mean a trick, and as big a shame as I’ve ever seen,” she said, hotly.  “You know I was brought up with this, and I never looked at it with the eyes of a stranger before.  If ever I get my fingers on those deeds, I’ll make short work of them!”

“And a good job, too!” assented Kate, instantly.  “Look out!  There comes Adam.”

“I’d just as soon tell him so as not!” whispered Nancy Ellen.

“Which would result in the deeds being recorded to-morrow and spoiling our trip to-day, and what good would it do you?” said Kate.

“None, of course!  Nothing ever does a Bates girl any good, unless she gets out and does it for herself,” retorted Nancy Ellen spitefully.

“There, there,” said Robert as he came to help Nancy Ellen protect her skirts in alighting.  “I was afraid this trip would breed discontent.”