"For the child! That is all the same. I am the father, and will take care of the money."
"But I can't give it you."
"Have you not got it?"
"The money is all right. Sanna's hundred pounds—I know where that is, and my fifty shall go along with it. I was always fond of Matabel. But the child was only baptized to-day, and won't be old enough to enjoy it for many years."
"In the meantime it can be laid out to its advantage," urged
Bideabout.
"I daresay," said Simon, "but I've nothin' to do with that, and you've nothin' to do with that."
"Then who has?"
"Iver, of course."
"Iver!" The Broom-Squire turned livid as a corpse.
"You see," pursued the host, "Sanna said as how she wouldn't make me trustee, I was too old, and I might be dead, or done something terrible foolish, before the child came of age to take it on itself, to use her very words. So she wouldn't make me trustee, but she put it all into Iver's hands to hold for the little chap. She were a won'erful shrewd woman were Sanna, and I've no doubt she was right."