“I’m thinkin’ of me, that’s what I’m thinkin’ of!  I’m wearin’ her old clothes on Sundays now.  I hate ’em.  They look like her an’ they smell like her and they feel like her—­mean an’ ugly an’ tight.  If I could ever get enough money o’ my own together, an’ enough clothes—­” she stopped, and looked at him with the sudden ferocity that at times flashed out in her—­“earned honest, though, and come by respectable,” said she, grimly, “then I’d get out o’ here an’ try something else.  I’m strong, an’ if I had half a chanst I could earn my livin’ easy enough.”

His jaw hardened.  He couldn’t blind himself to the fact that he was disappointed in Milly’s niece; so disappointed that he felt physically sick.  Had he been less fanatical, less obstinate, less fixed upon his monomaniacal purpose, he would have settled a sufficient sum upon her, and gone his way.  His disappointment, so far from turning him aside, hardened his determination to carry the thing through.  He had so acutely felt the lack of money himself, that now, perhaps, he overestimated its power.  Whatever money could accomplish for this girl, money should do.  The zeal of the reformer gathered in him.

“I wish,” he explained, “to adopt you—­in a sense.  I have no children, and it is my desire that you should bear the Champneys name—­for your Aunt Milly’s sake.  I propose, then, to take you away from these surroundings, and to educate you as a lady bearing the name of Champneys should be educated.  You will have to study, and to work hard.  You will have to obey orders instantly and implicitly.  Do you follow me?”

“As far as you go,” said she, cautiously.  “Go on:  I’m waitin’ to hear more.”

“Aside from yourself, I have but one close relative, my brother’s son.  You two, then, are to be my children.”

“How old is he?”

“About twenty.”

“But if you got a real heir, where do I come in?” she wondered.

“Share and share alike.  He’s my nephew:  you’re Milly’s niece.”

She reflected, a puzzled frown coming to her forehead.

“You’re aimin’ to give us both a whole lot, ain’t you?  But I’ve found out nobody don’t get somethin’ for nothin’ in this world.  Where’s the nigger in the woodpile?  What do I do for what I get?”

“You make yourself worthy of the name you are to bear.  You place yourself unreservedly in the hands of those appointed to instruct—­and—­ah—­form you.  Make no mistake on this head:  it will be far from easy for you.”

“Nothin’ ’s ever been easy for me, first nor yet last,” said Nancy Simms.  “So that ‘s nothin’ new to me.  I want you should speak out plain.  What you really mean I’m to do?”

For a moment the iron-willed old man hesitated; he remembered young Peter, eager, hopeful, crystal-clear young Peter, back there in South Carolina.  He looked challengingly and fiercely at the girl, as if his bold will meant to seize upon her as upon a piece of clay and mold it to his desire.  Then, “I mean you’re to marry,” he said crisply.