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Through the late winter and spring he performed numberless times for the neighbours: holding the book in his hands he pretended to read what he knew by heart. Gant was delighted: he abetted the deception. Every one thought it extraordinary that a child should read so young.

In the Spring Gant began to drink again; his thirst withered, however, in two or three weeks, and shamefacedly he took up the routine of his life. But Eliza was preparing for a change.

It was 1904; there was in preparation a great world's exposition at Saint Louis: it was to be the visual history of civilisation, bigger, better, and greater than anything of its kind ever known before. Many of the Altamont people intended to go: Eliza was fascinated at the prospect of combining travel with profit.

"Do you know what?" she began thoughtfully one night, as she laid down the paper, "I've a good notion to pack up and go."

"Go? Go where?"

"To Saint Louis," she answered. "Why, say—if things work out all right, we might simply pull out and settle down there." She knew that the suggestion of a total disruption of the established life, a voyage to new lands, a new quest of fortune fascinated him. It had been talked of years before when he had broken his partnership with Will Pentland.