“Looking for timber,” he sneered.  “And never in all my life have I seen anything to beat it.  Sixteen hundred and fifty acres of the best land in the world.  Your share of land and money together will be every cent of twelve thousand.  Oh, I guess I know what you’ve got up your sleeve, my lady.  Come on, shell out!  Let’s all go celebrate.  What did you bring the children?”

Kate was rapidly losing patience in spite of her resolves.

“Myself,” she said.  “From their appearance and actions, goodness knows they needed me.  I have been to my father’s funeral, George; not to a circus.”

“Humph!” said George.  “And home for the first time in seven years.  You needn’t tell me it wasn’t the biggest picnic you ever had!  And say, about those deeds burning up —­ wasn’t that too grand?”

“Even if my father burned with them?” she asked.  “George, you make me completely disgusted.”

“Big hypocrite!” he scoffed.  “You know you’re tickled silly.  Why, you will get ten times as much as you would if those deeds hadn’t burned.  I know what that estate amounts to.  I know what that land is worth.  I’ll see that you get your share to the last penny that can be wrung out of it.  You bet I will!  Things are coming our way at last.  Now we can build the mill, and do everything we planned.  I don’t know as we will build a mill.  With your fifteen thousand we could start a store in Hartley, and do bigger things.”

“The thing for you to do right now is to hitch up and take Aunt Ollie and your mother home,” said Kate.  “I’ll talk to you after supper and tell you all there is to know.  I’m dusty and tired now.”

“Well, you needn’t try to fix up any shenanigan for me,” he said.  “I know to within five hundred dollars of what your share of that estate is worth, and I’ll see that you get it.”

“No one has even remotely suggested that I shouldn’t have my share of that estate,” said Kate.

While he was gone, Kate thought intently as she went about her work.  She saw exactly what her position was, and what she had to do.  Their talk would be disagreeable, but the matter had to gone into and gotten over.  She let George talk as he would while she finished supper and they ate.  When he went for his evening work, she helped the children scale their fish for breakfast and as they worked she talked to them, sanely, sensibly, explaining what she could, avoiding what she could not.  She put them to bed, her heart almost sickened at what they had been taught and told.  Kate was in no very propitious mood for her interview with George.  As she sat on the front porch waiting for him, she was wishing with all her heart that she was back home with the children, to remain forever.  That, of course, was out of the question, but she wished it.  She had been so glad to be with her mother again, to be of service, to hear a word of approval now and then.  She must be worthy of her mother’s opinion, she thought, just as George stepped on the porch, sat on the top step, leaned against a pillar, and said:  “Now go on, tell me all about it.”