a lady. Papa says he is anxious to know what results would be found
in the chemist's report. May I listen while you tell papa about it?
Indeed, I am extremely interested to know if anything can be done to
make our farm produce such crops as it used to when grandmother was
a little girl."

"Still I fear you will find it a very tiresome subject," said Percy.
"It is, as a rule, not an easy matter to adopt a system of permanent
improvement on land that has been depleted by a century or more of
exhaustive husbandry. but you will be very welcome not only to
listen but to counsel also. My mother can measure difficulties in
advance better than most men; and I believe it is true that women
will deliberately plan and follow a course involving greater
hardship and privation than men would undertake. I cannot conceive
of any man doing what my mother has done for me."

Adelaide glanced at Percy as he spoke of his mother. Something in
his words or voice seemed to reveal to her a depth of feeling, a
wealth of affection akin to reverence, such as she had never
recognized before.






CHAPTER XXIX

THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON