"Forty-two acres _and_ the house! Open the windows and give us air!"

"Acres run to seed, and the house tumbling down about its own ears! A
magnificent inheritance that!" Max cast his hat upon a chair as if he
flung it away with the inheritance.

"But who ever thought Uncle Maxwell Lane would ever leave his poor
relations anything?" This was Sally.

"Five miles out by road--a bit less by trolley. Let's go and see it
to-morrow afternoon. Thank goodness a half holiday is so near."

"Anybody been by the place lately?"

"I was, just the other day, on my wheel. I didn't think it looked so
awfully bad." This was Robert, the sixteen-year-old.

As Uncle Timothy entered the tiny sitting-room Sally was speaking. She
had thrown her black veil back over her hat, revealing masses of flaxen
hair, and deep blue eyes glowing with interest. Her delicate cheeks were
warmly flushed, partly with excitement, and partly because for two hours
now--during the journey from the flat to the lawyer's office, the period
spent therein listening to the reading of Uncle Maxwell Lane's will and
the business appertaining thereto, and the return trip home--she had
worn the veil closely drawn. Her simple mourning was to her a screen
behind which to shield herself from curious eyes, always attracted by
those masses of singularly fair hair and the unusual contours of the
young face beneath.

"I think it's a godsend, if ever anything was," she was saying. "Here's