"Oh, everybody most along Providence Road," answered Rose Mary
enthusiastically, though not raising her eyes from the manipulation of
the third butter flower. "Can't you go out and dig up some more rocks
and things? I feel sure you haven't got a sample of all of them. And
there may be gold and silver and precious jewels just one inch deeper
than you have dug. Are you certain you can't squeeze up some oil
somewhere in the meadow? You told a whole lot of reasons to Uncle
Tucker why you knew you would find some, and now you'll have to stay
to prove yourself."

"No," answered Mark Everett quietly, and, as he spoke, he raised his
eyes and looked at Rose Mary keenly; "no, there is no oil that I can
discover, though the formation, as I explained to your uncle, is just
as I expected to find it. I've spent three weeks going over every inch
of the Valley and I can't find a trace of grease. I'm sorry."

"Well, I don't know that I care, except for your sake," answered Rose
Mary unconcernedly, with her eyes still on her task. "We don't any of
us like the smell of coal-oil, and it gives Aunt Viney asthma. It
would be awfully disagreeable to have wells of it right here on the
place. They'd be so ugly and smelly."

"But oil-wells mean--mean a great deal of wealth," ventured Everett.

"I know, but just think of the money Uncle Tucker gets for this butter
I make from the cows that graze on the meadows. Wouldn't it be awful
if they should happen to drink some of the coal-oil and make the
butter we send down to the city taste wrong and spoil the Sweetbriar
reputation? I like money though, most awfully, and I want some right