"Help me! Why?"
"Oh she told me not to let the cat out of the bag, but I never could keep a cat in anything. She heard you were engaged to Maud—keeping it quiet—much better—I wouldn't have mentioned it but for this money."
"Good heavens! What else—she won't have much left."
"Confound it all—the rest, I suppose, will build Stone House, only——" and Sir Evas chuckled,
"Staines has kept the coal mines as her share, and there's no knowing what they are worth, unless the seam fails—there'll be pickings, but only pickings. Such a fortune, a princely fortune. Stone couldn't have foreseen it."
"I believe he did, Sir Evas, I believe it was his fashion of dispensing charity."
"I don't know, he was a queer fish himself, gave lavishly in secret, but—it's really enough to turn Staines' hair white."
Here Lewis Waycott laughed aloud; Sir Evas looked at him a little reproachfully.
"I don't see the joke."
"Forgive me, Sir Evas—I do—but what made Toney say that about Maud? What an absurd idea! I'm awfully fond of Maud—I think I told Toney so—but I look upon these girls as my sisters. They're tremendously improved, and it's Toney's doing."