Said I--let me have his next four years. I'll put him through college, give him work in the mills during the summer, and when he graduates I'll give him a choice of taking over the business or following a profession. The knowledge of business and some honest, hard work would bring the scamp's tone up. He's flabby now; flabby as his father before him."

"And she--says?"

Levi turned to the letter.

"She says she will not consider the plan for a moment, but she says she will not mention it to Lansing, and when I return he may choose for himself. I really thought the Treadwell woman would reckon with the money and not be so independent!"

"It's to her credit," Matilda murmured.

"Oh! doubtless she thinks when I have it out with the boy I'll change my mind. She'll find the contrary. It's come to the last ditch now.

I'm not going to have any repetition of--the past with my money backing it!"

Again a long silence while Sandy apparently slept, and Bob twitched and grunted. Then:

"Matilda, we must return to Massachusetts. How soon can we go?"

Suddenly Sandy started up and leaned forward. His eyes were the one prominent feature in his face, and they were now hungry and anxious.

"Massachusetts?" he whispered in the weak, hoarse voice of the convalescent; "Massachusetts? That's where I'm going; there's money to pay my way, almost, I reckon. I'll work out the rest and make my schooling, too. I'll promise. Oh! take me with you!"

The agony of earnestness brought both man and woman to his side.

"Now, now!" commanded Matilda, pushing him back on the pillow; "nothing is ever gained by using yourself up in this shallow fashion."

"But I've got to go!" Sandy urged breathlessly; "I started out to go.

I saved ever since I was seven years old to get away--and at last I fixed on--Massachusetts because they let you work for your learning there--and I've got to get it--get learning!"

"Come! come!" Levi asserted himself--"just you calm down. But if it will ease your mind any I'll tell you this much, lad. We've got it all fixed up amongst us--and if you want to go to Massachusetts and try your hand at your luck, you're going to be given an opportunity. Now, let go that grip on the arms of your chair! Matilda, get some broth; get----"

But he stopped short. The look in Sandy's eyes held him. Levi Markham often said afterward that the expression on the boy's face at that moment gave him a "turn." It was no boy-look; it was the command from all that had gone to the making of Sandy; command that the boy be dealt fairly with at last.

"I'm a hard man, Matilda," Markham said later, when Sandy had let go the grip of his chair, taken his broth and fallen exhaustedly to sleep; "I'm a hard man who has hewn his own way up, but I hope I'm a just man, and I declare before God I wouldn't dare play unfairly with the lad.

He's not the first fellow I've put upon his feet; some have toppled over; some have gone ahead of me and given me the cold shoulder afterward--a few have stood by me in the mills--this youngster shall have a try to prove that look on his face."

So it was that ten days later the Markhams, with their "po' white trash," left The Forge--Bob rebelliously struggling in the baggage car.

A certain piece of land high up among the hills had been purchased by Markham and the deed rested secure in his pocket. He knew what he was about, and if a certain fool of a boy thought well of a proposition to be made to him--there might be a future for himself and others later on.

"It's a great factory site," Markham had written home to his lawyer; "plenty of water and power. Land as rich as if it was just made, and labour aching to be utilized--not exploited."

The journey to Massachusetts was taken in slow stages--Sandy and Bob complicated matters.

"You--think, sir, my money will--hold out?" Sandy once asked wearily.

"I've been estimating," Levi thoughtfully returned; "barring accidents, taking to cheap hotels and allowing for a few weeks' rest after we reach home, the amount will about see you through."

"Thank you, sir."

They were talking in Sandy's bedroom in a very good hotel in New York at that moment.

"You look pretty spruce to-day, young man."

"I'm feeling right smart, sir. Could--could I, do you think, write--two notes?"

This was such an unusual request that Markham was curious.

"That's easy," he said; "there's writing things in yonder desk. I'll read the paper while you transact business."

Sandy was strangely sensitive to tones and expressions and now he turned to Markham.

"I want--my father to know I'm all right, sir," he said quietly. "If he knows that--he can wait till--I go back."

Suddenly the long stretches on beyond staggered Sandy and his thin face quivered.

"Then--there is----" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a--a girl, sir. She helped me--earn money. She's--different from me--she's--quality, but she'd like to know, too."

Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from view.

"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much desire.

"Quality, sir, is not made. It--is!"

Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance, snarled resentfully.

"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go.

Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors--we only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand up to the best of them in your hills--if it's in you to stand. It all lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out.

Afterward I have a plan to propose."

So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice.

The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big, seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no complaints--he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled him and he yearned for the open and the sight of a hill. He dreamed vividly of Lost Mountain, and he always saw it now enveloped in mist--a mist that he felt confident would never again lift for him. It was homesickness in the wide, spiritual sense that overpowered Sandy Morley at that time.

"Sandford, are you strong enough to talk business?"

"Yes, sir, I reckon I am."

The quaint politeness of his protege charmed Markham by its contrasts to the manner of other boys with whom he had come into contact.

"Sit down, and take it easy. Shut the window. You never seem to be able to hear when the sash is raised."

"Us-all's been used, sir, to still places."

"Now, then! In a day or two we will be home, Sandford. Home in Bretherton, Mass. We can't offer you mountains there, but it is a good rolling country and it's--quiet! I'm going to choose a school for you as soon as I can, a country school where you can catch up without having the life nagged out of you."

"And--and where am I to work and--live, sir?"

"You'll find work enough at the school for the regular terms--summers you are going to stop with Miss Markham and me and I'll set you to work in my mills. I always set every one I take an interest in, to work in my mills."

"Yes, sir." Sandy's eyes were growing "strange" again. Markham was learning to watch for that look.