"Colonel Mowbray founded the settlement," Beatrice said, "and it has prospered. Can't you understand his feelings when he sees his control threatened?"
"The time when one man could hold full command has gone. He can be a moral influence and keep the right spirit in his people, but he must leave them freedom of action."
"That is just the trouble! It's the modern spirit which you are bringing into the settlement that disturbs us. We managed to get along very well before we ever heard of Mr. Harding and his steam-plow and his wheat-binders and his creameries."
She could not keep the slight scorn out of her voice; indeed, she did not wish to do so. But he took it good-naturedly.
"Do you know what I see?" he questioned with a smile. "A time when Colonel Mowbray—and Colonel Mowbray's daughter," he added teasingly—"will look with pride upon the vast acres of Allenwood turned from waste grassland into productive fields of wheat and oats and flax; when the obsolete horse-plow will be scrapped as old iron and the now despised steam-plow will be a highly treasured possession of every settler; when——"
"Never!" Beatrice interrupted emphatically. "You must understand that my father's views and yours are as widely different as the poles—and my father is the head of Allenwood!"
Harding looked down at the haughty face turned up to him; and a great longing suddenly surged through him. He had never desired her more than at that instant. His admiration showed so strongly in his eyes that the blood swept into Beatrice's face.
"Bee!" Lance called back to them. "Mrs. Broadwood wants you to verify what I'm telling her about the collie pup."
Beatrice loved her brother for the interruption.