"I cannot imagine you as a failure in anything, Hiram," she, told him very prettily.
"No? I can imagine myself failing in lots of things."
"But not in this new venture you are making? Father says you have wonderful pluck to attempt to go out into that strange country and risk your last cent on a wheat ranch."
"I suppose it does look like a gamble," admitted Hiram.
"And father says he would be glad to help you get started here, as Orrin—I mean, Theodore—is starting."
"It is kind of your father, I know," agreed Hiram. "But I guess I am in a hurry. I may be glad to come back and take a job with your father again. But it will only be after I have spent every cent I own on this new venture."
"And you have made good here, Hiram," she said, with some wistfulness in her voice and her look. "Don't you think you would better stay?"
"Couldn't think of it, Lettie. My plans are all made."
"Not—not if all your friends here asked you to?" she ventured.
"Why, I am sure," Hiram laughed, but remembering in secret how Sister had finally wished him Godspeed, "that none of my real friends would want to keep me back from this thing, when I am so set on it and have been so long planning for it."