"My dear Nora," he said, "we are not back in England. The sooner you
forget all the old notions of class and class distinctions, the happier
you'll be. They won't go here. As long as a man's straight, honest and a
worker--and Frank's all three--it doesn't make any odds whether he's
working for himself or for someone else. We're all on the same footing.
It is only due to the fact that I've had two good years in succession
that I'm not somebody's 'hired man' myself."

"Don't, Eddie, don't; you don't realize how you hurt me."

"My dear girl, I'm sorry; but I'm in dead earnest."

"You, a hired man? Oh, I can't believe it."

"It's true, nevertheless. Plenty of better fellows than I have had to do
it. When you're starting in, unless you have a good deal bigger capital
than I had, you only need to be hailed out, frosted out, or weeded out a
couple of years in succession to use up your little stake, and then
where are you?"

"What do you mean by 'weeded out'?"

He was just about to explain when a halloo from the stables cut him
short. "There's Frank now. I ought to be out helping him this minute;
we've got a good stiff drive ahead of us. You ask Gertie about it,
she'll explain it to you."

But Gertie had been deeply preoccupied with some domestic problem and
Nora had forborne to question her. She had intended returning to the