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 "I'll wager it has. Louise wouldn't be found camping by a stagnant pool."

Again she watched her brother curiously. He was gazing into the distance, at nothing.

"Sometimes I feel stagnant beside Louise," he admitted, put off his guard by the unwonted charm of a sisterly chat.

Alice patted his shoulder, with a gesture tender but angular. "Father is purring with pleasure at the way you've stuck to your guns, sonny, although, naturally, he wouldn't say so for all the king's horses and all the king's men. In the beginning he used to shake his head in scepticism and sorrow. Now he never lets a dinner guest get away from the house without dragging in you and your colonizing enterprise. Mother, of course, has always doted and still does; but she would have, if you'd gone in for knife-grinding. She would never conceive the possibility of any one doubting you. I frankly did,—not you, but your schemes."

"There's plenty to be done yet," Keble said. "It will take twenty years. Sometimes the future looks as steep to me as Hardscrapple."

"It won't look so steep when you've got your second wind. I'm full of rosy hopes for you. What's more, I'm jolly comfortable here. I thought I was going to hate it. I've been well fed and waited on. I've been amused and sauced by a witty child who isn't in the least awed by my accursed standoffishness. I think the most remarkable thing about