It would be some years yet before she arrived at the age of sweet seventeen, but when she did, her uncle determined to sell off or realize on his plantation, his goods and chattels, and sail across the seas once more to dear old Cornwall and the real Burnley Hall.
He looked forward to that time as the weary worker in stuffy towns or cities does to a summer holiday.
There is excitement enough in money-making, it is like an exhilarating game of billiards or whist, but it is apt to become tiresome.
And Tom St. Clair was often overtired and weary. He was always glad when he reached home at night to his rocking-chair and a good dinner, after toiling all day in the recently-started india-rubber-forest works.
But Mr. Peter took a vast deal of labour off his hands.
Mr. Peter, or Don Pedro, ingratiated himself with nearly everyone from the first, and seemed to take to the work as if to the manner born.
There were three individuals, however, who could not like him, strange to say; these were Peggy herself, Benee the Indian who had guided them through the forest when lost, and who had remained on the estate ever since, while the third was Brawn, the Irish wolf-hound.
The dog showed his teeth if Peter tried even to caress him.
Both Roland and Dick--the latter was a very frequent visitor--got on very well with Peter--trusted him thoroughly.
"How is it, Benee," said Roland one day to the Indian, "that you do not love Don Pedro?"