"Tell me, then."
"I don't want diamonds, or pearls, or gold. I want lead—I think it's lead. Perhaps it's iron. Yes, I think it is. I want you to take water into those old cottages on the peppermint land."
"Where do you mean, dear?"
"I mean the land Mrs. Morton bought, not the hereditary domain! Wasn't it bought with peppermint, and sticks of bright pink rock, and yards of liquorice? I like to think of ragged little children putting their dirty faces against dirty window panes, and gloating over masses of your grandfather's sweets. Don't you?"
"I'm afraid I have often wished he had made money, if he had to make it, in a different way."
"That's because you have more false pride than imagination. Why, he has made a fairy feast for children! Think of the dark winter streets, wet, perhaps, and the lamps just lighted and bright reflections in the pavements, and children staring at pyramids of sweetness. It's lovely—magical, like being a perpetual Father Christmas. So when I call it the peppermint land, I do not sneer, and you'll lay on the water, won't you?"
"There's a well quite near, darling."
"It's across a field."
"A small field."
"Quite big enough."