He had taken the dead man's inheritance for a while, but he would stoop no further, and to speak the truth, which he saw was not credited, brought him a grim amusement and also flung a sop to his pride.

Presently, however, Miss Barrington turned to him, and there was a kindly gleam in her eyes as she glanced at the splendid horses and widening strip of plowing.
"You have the hope of youth, Lance, to make this venture when all looks black--and it pleases me," she said.

"Sometimes I fancy that men had braver hearts than they have now, when I was young." Winston flushed a trifle, and stretching out an arm swept his hand round the horizon.

"All that looked dead a very little while ago, and now you can see the creeping greenness in the sod," he said.

"The lean years cannot last forever, and, even if one is beaten again, there is a consolation in knowing that one has made a struggle.