Oh, misleading imagination.  The will is truly the father of thought and faith.  Percy knew as he parted from Adelaide that he had left with her the love of heart and mind of one whose life had developed in him the character which does nothing by halves.  His love had multiplied with the distance as he journeyed westward, with a great new pleasure which life seemed to hold before him and with a pardonable confidence in its achievement.

He had written Mr. West a week after his return in a way which would not fail of understanding if his hopes were justified.  The belated reply which reached him after holidays was accepted as final.  His pride was humiliated and the sweetest dream of his life abruptly ended.  He felt the more helpless and the more deeply wounded because of Mr. West’s reference to his special service in the protection he had once rendered to Adelaide.  It continually reminded him that, as the highest type of gentleman, he should do nothing that could be construed as an endeavor to take advantage of the consideration to which that act might seem to entitle him.  Bound and buried in the deepest dungeon, waiting only for the announcement from his of the day of his execution.  This was his mental attitude as the months passed and he began to receive an occasional letter from Mr. West, in each of which he looked for the news of Adelaide’s marriage.

In Mrs. Johnston a feeling of hatred had developed for Adelaide.  She was certain that she had marred the happiness of her son.  The heartlessness of a flirt who could trifle with the affection of one who had a right to assume in her an honor equal to his own deserved only to be hated with even righteous hatred.  She saw the scrawled note which she knew Percy had not seen, but what did it signify?  An eccentric old lady’s penchant for match making?  Perhaps she was even more guilty than the girl in attempting to lead Percy to see in Adelaide more than he ought.  She might even take an old flirt’s delight in the mere number of conquests made by her granddaughter.  Or was the scrawled note slipped into the envelope by a prank-playing fourteen-year-old brother?  In any case was it wise that Percy should see the note?  She could probably do nothing better than to leave it with the letter.  Even if the girl were worthy, Percy could never hope to win one of her class, whose pride of ancestry is their bread of life.  It might not have been quite so, perhaps, if Percy had only selected some more respected profession.  Why should not he have become a college professor?

CHAPTER XXXVI

HARD TIMES

WHEN Percy and his mother reached Poorland Farm in March they found a small frame house needing only shingles, paint, and paper to make it a fairly comfortable home, until they should be able to add such conveniences as Percy knew could be installed in the country as well as in the city.  From the sale of corn and some other produce they were able to add to the residue of $1,840, which represented the difference between the cost of three hundred and twenty acres in Egypt and the selling price of forty acres in the corn belt.  An even $3,000 was left in the savings bank at Winterbine.