"Well," said Richard, "if you are so keen on the place, why shouldn't we wait for a chance to get it, instead of looking for something more or less like it?"
"Because you can't," said Jane. "We're general public, and general public is never allowed to buy a place like Midway. People live in it till they die, and then leave it to the person they love best, and that person lives in it till he dies. And so on again. It never comes into the market. Things that are really valuable hardly ever do."
The conversation took place in the train which was conveying them to Selsdon Bois.
"Ah, well," said Richard, "what is there? It needn't be very big to be too big for us."
"Not a big house at all. I never counted, but I should think about twenty rooms." She made guesses as to acreage of garden, orchard, and grass-land. She admitted that they were merely guesses.
"The only thing that I really remember is that it was thirty-six acres in all. Could we do it?"
"Yes," said Richard; "we ought to be able to do that."
"Still, it doesn't matter," said Jane despondently, "because, of course, places like that are never to be got."
Then they stepped out on to the platform of Selsdon Bois Station, where a man was busily pasting up a bill. It announced the sale by auction, unless previously disposed of, of Midway.
"Miracle!" said Jane, subsiding gracefully on to a milk-can. "It's ours!"