"You can't, Lydia. You'll just have to reconcile yourself to a misunderstanding with him."
"But I can't live that way!" wailed Lydia.
"Well, you have the cottage. He used to think he'd be perfectly happy if he owned that."
"Oh, there's a mortgage on the cottage!" exclaimed Lydia. "Poor Daddy!
He wants to pay the mortgage with the lands."
"It's tough luck! But there's nothing for you to do, Lydia, but to stick to it. Don't weaken and things will come out all right. See if they don't. And you've always got me. And if I see they're worrying you too much, I'll make trouble for 'em."
A vague, warm sense of comfort and protection was stilling Lydia's trembling. She rose and looked up into his face gratefully. "I don't see why you're so good to me," she said.
"Do you want me to tell you?" began the young man eagerly.
"No! No!" Lydia began to move hastily toward the door. "Don't come home with me, Billy. I'll just run back alone."
Billy's face in the lantern light was inscrutable. "I'll obey to-night, Lydia," he said, "but the time's coming, when I won't," and he picked up the pitchfork he had dropped.
With the sense of comfort and protection sustaining her, Lydia went homeward under the winter stars. Kent's automobile was standing before the gate and Lydia's heart sank. It was the first time in her life she ever had been sorry at the thought of seeing Kent.