“How are you expecting to bring this wonderful thing to pass?” asked his father, as Malcolm stopped to take breath.  “Do you expect to wave a wand and see it spring up out of the earth?”

“Of course not, papa!” said Malcolm, a little provoked by his father’s teasing smile.  “We were going to ask you to let us take the money that grandfather left us in his will.  We won’t need it when we are grown, for we can earn plenty ourselves then, and it seems too bad to have it laid away doing nobody any good, when we need it so much now to right this wrong of Jonesy’s.”

“But it is not laid away,” answered Mr. MacIntyre.  “It is invested in such a way that it is earning you more money every year; and more than that, it was left in trust for you, so that it cannot be touched until you are twenty-one.”

“Oh, papa!” cried Malcolm, bitterly disappointed.  He had hard work to keep back the tears for a moment; then a happy thought made his face brighten.  “You could lend us the money, and we would pay you back when we are of age.  You know you promised Keith you would do anything he wanted, and that is what he was trying to ask for?”

Mr. Maclntyre put his arm around the earnest little fellow, and drew him to his knee, smiling down into the upturned face that waited eagerly for his answer.

“I only asked that to hear what you would say, my son,” was the answer.  “You need have no worry about the money.  I’ll keep my promise to Keith, and Jonesy shall have his home.  I’m not a knight, but I’m proud to be the father of two such valiant champions.  Please God, you’ll not be alone in your battles after this, to right the world’s wrongs.  I’ll be your faithful squire, or, as we’d say in these days, a sort of silent partner in the enterprise.”

Several days after this a deed was recorded in the county court-house, conveying a large piece of property from old Colonel Lloyd to Malcolm and Keith Maclntyre.  It was the place adjoining “The Locusts,” on which stood a fine old homestead that had been vacant for several years.  The day after its purchase a force of carpenters and painters were set to work, and two coloured men began clearing out the tangle of bushes in the long-neglected garden.

Jonesy know nothing of what was going on, and wondered at the long conversations which took place between the old professor and Mr. Maclntyre, always in German.  It was the professor who found some one to take care of the home, as Virginia had suggested.  He recommended a countryman of his, Carl Sudsberger, who had long been a teacher like himself.  He was a gentle old soul who loved children and understood them, and a more motherly creature than his wife could not well be imagined.  Everything throve under her thrifty management, and she had no patience with laziness or waste.  Any boy in whose bringing up she had a hand would be able to make his way in the world when the time came for it.

Mrs. Dudley and Miss Allison helped choose the furnishings, but Virginia felt that the pleasure of it was all hers, for she was taken to the city every time they went, and allowed a voice in everything.  Several trips were necessary before the house was complete, but by the last week in May it was ready from attic to cellar.