“That is my fault, I fear,” Katherine said in laughing apology.  “But I know what Oily Dave is, and that the one thing to move him is money; so when Mrs. Jenkin told me he was the only man about, I told her to say to him he must come at once, for there was money in the work.”

“You were quite right, and if you had promised him a hundred dollars I would cheerfully have paid it,” Mr. Selincourt replied; and then he turned to talk to ’Duke Radford, who had been sitting all this time with his head resting on his hand, and taking no notice at all of what the others were talking about.

But when the tea-things were cleared away, and Katherine had gone back to the store again, Mr. Selincourt followed her and commenced talking afresh of what he meant and hoped to make of that particular part of the world in the course of the next two or three years.  He had a special purpose in coming up river that afternoon, for he wanted to consult Katherine on a business point, and did not feel very sure of his ground.

Being a straightforward man in all things, however, he stated bluntly what he had to say.  “I want to buy your land, if I can, Miss Katherine, and I am prepared to pay you any price in reason that you like to ask me for it.  I understand that your father owns the river frontage for about a mile on this side of the water, which is practically from here to the swamps, and it is land that I should very much like to possess.”

“But it is not mine to sell,” she said blankly, too much taken by surprise to know whether she felt pleased or offended by the suggestion.

“I know it is not.  But your father cannot be approached on any question of buying or selling, so I had to come to you to see how you felt about it, and I want you to think the matter over,” Mr. Selincourt replied.

“All the thinking in the world cannot alter the position so far as I am concerned,” said Katherine, with a little gesture of weariness.  “Our father is apparently a hopeless invalid, afflicted more in mind than in body, yet no really qualified doctor has seen him, to certify his unfitness for managing his own affairs.  We, his children, are all under age, except Nellie.  By the way, why did you not go to her?—­she is the eldest.  Though, even if you had, she could only have spoken as I have done.”

“I came to you because you stand in your father’s place, carrying on business in his name,” Mr. Selincourt said quietly.  “And if you felt that it would be for the good of yourself and the others to have some easier life than this, it would be very much my pleasure to help you in realizing your wishes.”

“But how?” asked Katherine, who failed to see how her father’s property could be disposed of without consulting him, while he was in life, and they, his children, were all under age save one.

Mr. Selincourt smiled.  “Things can mostly be managed when one wants them to be done.  If you and the others believed it would be for the good of the family to sell your father’s property, we could bring a doctor up here to certify to his unfitness for business.  Your sister would have to be made acting trustee for the rest of you, and so the thing would be done.”