“Would it fetch much?”

“Possibly twenty thousand, if the right people were bidding.”

Lionel whistled. Then he said, tentatively:

“I love the picture, but I’d let it go gladly if the mortgage could be diminished by that big sum, or——”

“Or?”

“If the money could be laid out on the estate. Fishpingle says——”

“Don’t quote old Ben to me, boy. He transmits my ideas. Well, well, you surprise me. I have regarded our heirlooms as sacred.”

“But the mortgage, father?”

“Tchah! You find that nice little girl. Snug dowries have cancelled many a mortgage.”

“Yes; that is what Tom Chanoller says.”