"Do you know they use his text-books in Germany?" I asked proudly; "and that last work of his, 'Tree Influence on Precipitation,' was talked about in all the universities. Look," I said, pointing to a scarred and gullied hillside across the road, showing bare even in the twilight, "there is the great work to be done in our land, there is the coming field for the young brains of our country—that, and better farming, and the watering of our great barren spots in the West. We've cut down our trees wantonly—our pioneer sires did so before us,—for the land had to be cleared or they would have died. But now if I can only get them to change! You should see the German and French system. When I came through France, along their coasts, both on the Mediterranean and the Channel, were great forests planted to break the winds and storms. I was told that a century ago the winds began to make deserts of their coasts, encroaching mile after mile into the land. Now, with the trees planted, it is a garden again."
Eloise was listening silently. Then she said, "Jack, that is all very fine, and it took courage in you to do it, to go over there. It was not Aunt Lucretia's idea; hers was a horse-farm for you; and the General's was West Point and war. He has never been the same toward you, Jack—I can see it—since you would not go to West Point."
"He never cared for me as he did for Braxton," I said. I winced, for I loved my old grandsire.
"He has not written me a line since I have been gone," I went on.
"Poor Jack," and she took my hand in hers in the old way, "and I have always teased you cruelly, Jack."
"And Eloise," I said, "I have always loved you."
"Jack," she said, "Little Brother,"—those words I knew of old meant condescension—"I knew it would not do. I wanted you to love someone else. You know Aunt Lucretia's silly conditions." She flushed in the twilight. "I hoped while you were away," she went on, "if we didn't write you'd forget me."
"And instead," I said, bringing her hand to my lips, "I thought of no one else but you. I came back loving you, Eloise, more than ever; as a man's love is greater than a boy's."
She grew suddenly stern. "Jack, Jack, haven't I told you not to?"
"Not?" I cried. "Did any real lover ever have a choice? It's not his part to decide—"