bed hung an artist's conception of "Lorna Doone," a beautiful face,
framed in a mass of auburn hair, with smiling lips, and a dreamy look in
her eyes.

"That's my girl," Dorian sometimes said, pointing to this picture. "No
one can take her from me; we never quarrel; and she never scolds or
frowns."

On another wall hung a portrait of his father, who had been dead nine
years. His father had been a teacher with a longing to be a farmer.
Eventually, this longing had been realized in the purchase of the twenty
acres in Greenstreet, at that time a village with not one street which
could be called green, and without a sure water supply for irrigation,
at least on the land which would grow corn and potatoes and wheat. To
be sure, there was water enough of its kind down on the lower slopes,
besides saleratus and salt grass and cattails and the tang of marshlands
in the air. Schoolmaster Trent's operations in farming had not been very
successful, and when he died, the result of his failure was a part of
the legacy which descended to his wife and son.

Dorian took a book from the shelf as if to read; but visions intruded
of some beautiful volumes, now somewhere down the canal, a mass of
water-soaked paper. He could not read. He finished his last chocolate,
said his prayers, and went to bed.

Saturday was always a busy day with Dorian and his mother; but that
morning Mrs. Trent was up earlier than usual. The white muslin curtains
were already in the wash when Dorian looked at his mother in the summer
kitchen.