“She wouldn't like to.”
“Then how will that help us? Who owns the house?”
“She does; that is, nominally. I hold a mortgage on the place for seven hundred and fifty dollars, which is more than half the market value.”
“Then it may eventually fall into your hands?”
“Very probably. Between ourselves, I think it probable that she will fail to be ready with the semi-annual interest, which comes due next week. She is quite poor—has nothing but this property—and has to sew for a living, or braid straw, neither of which pays well.”
“Suppose she is not ready with the interest, do you propose to foreclose?”
“I think I shall. I will allow her three or four hundred dollars for her share of the property, and that will be the best thing she can do, in my opinion.”
Whether or not it would be the best thing for Mrs. Carter, it certainly wouldn't be a bad speculation for the squire, since the place, as already stated, was worth fully fifteen hundred dollars. How a rich man can deliberately plot to defraud a poor woman of a portion of her small property, you and I, my young reader, may find it hard to understand. Unfortunately there are too many cases in real life where just such things happen, so that there really seems to be a good deal of truth in the old adage that prosperity hardens the heart.
If Mr. Banks had been a just or kind-hearted man, he would not have encouraged his employer in the plan he had just broached; but he was selfish, and thought he saw in it an easy solution of the difficulty which he had met with in securing a house for his cousin. He did not know Mrs. Carter, and felt no particular interest in the question what was to become of her if she was ejected from her house. No doubt she would find a home somewhere. At any rate, it was not his business.
“It seems to me that will be an excellent plan,” he said, with satisfaction. “How soon can we find out about it?”