"
"I really think I liked him the better for it," said the little
silver-haired lady. "The respect was not assumed, but wholly genuine,
you see, and whether I was entitled to it or not, it was a good deal in
Lance's favor that he should offer it to me. There must be some good
in the man who can be moved to reverence anything, even if he is
mistaken."
"No man with any sense could help adoring you," said Maud Barrington.
"Still, I wonder why you believe I was wrong in wishing he had not come
to Silverdale?"
Miss Barrington looked thoughtful. "I will tell you, my dear. There
are few better men than my brother, but his thoughts, and the
traditions he is bound by, are those of fifty years ago, while the
restless life of the prairie is a thing of to-day. We have fallen too
far behind it at Silverdale, and a crisis is coming that none of us are
prepared for. Even Dane is scarcely fitted to help my brother to face
it, and the rest are either over-fond of their pleasure or untrained
boys. Brave lads they are, but none of them have been taught that it
is only by mental strain, or the ceaseless toil of his body, the man
without an inheritance can win himself a competence now. This is why
they want a leader who has known hardship and hunger, instead of ease,
and won what he holds with his own hand in place of having it given
him."
"You fancy we could find one in such a man as Lance has been?"
Miss Barrington looked grave. "I believe the prodigal was afterwards a
better as well as a wiser man than the one who stayed at home, and I am
not quite sure that Lance's history is so nearly like that of the son
in the parable as we have believed it to be.
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