The colonel rose from his chair, steadied himself on the low window-sill, and looked out across the Tench. The silence was oppressive—only the ticking of the clock in the next room and the bees among the flowers outside.
"Wait until I return," he said, crumpling the paper.
In a moment he was back, leading in his aunt by the hand. Miss Nancy entered with a half-puzzled look on her face, which deepened into certain anxiety as she began to realize the pronounced formality of the proceedings. The colonel cleared his throat impressively.
"Nancy, an investigation begun in New York by my dear friend Fitz, and completed here to-day, results in the discov'ry that what you have always considered as slight outcroppin's of coal, and wuthless, is really of vehy great value." The colonel here unbuttoned his coat, and threw out his chest. "A syndicate of English capitalists have, through our guest, offered you the sum of one hundred thousand dollars for the coal-hill, with a royalty of ten cents per ton for every ton mined over a certain amount, one thousand dollars to be paid now and the balance on the search of title and signin' of the contract. I believe I have stated it correctly, suh?"
The agent bowed his head, and scrutinized Miss Nancy's face with the eye of a hawk.
The dear lady sank into a chair. For a moment she lost her breath. Yancey handed her a fan with a quickness of movement never seen in him before, and the colonel continued:—
"This will of course still leave you, Nancy, this house and about half of the farm property transferred to you by me at the fo'closure sale."
The little woman looked from one to the other in a dazed sort of way, and her eye rested on Fitz.
"What shall I do, Mr. Fitzpatrick? It seems to me a grave step to sell any part of the estate."
Fitz blushed at the mark of her confidence, and said that with the royalty clause he thought the proposition a favorable one.