"Then, if you must be satisfied, you're my neighbor; you have had blamed hard luck and I like the way you're standing up to it. If anybody's on meaner soil than yours I want to see it. Anyway, here's the seed; take what you need, pay me back when you're able. Guess you're not too proud to take a favor that's gladly offered."
"I'd be a most ungrateful brute if I refused," George replied with feeling.
"That's done with," Grant said firmly; and soon afterward he and George returned to the other room.
After a while he went out with Edgar to look at a horse, and George turned to Flora.
"Your father has taken a big weight off my mind, and I'm afraid I hardly thanked him," he said.
"Then it was a relief?" she asked, and it failed to strike him as curious that she seemed to know what he was alluding to.
"Yes," he declared; "I feel ever so much more confident now that I can get that seed. The fact that it was offered somehow encouraged me."
"You never expected anything of the kind? I've sometimes thought you're apt to stand too much alone. You don't attach enough importance to your friends."
"Perhaps not," admitted George. "I've been very wrong in this instance; but I suppose one naturally prefers to hide one's difficulties."
"I don't think the feeling's universal. But you would, no doubt, be more inclined to help other people out of their troubles."