"There is no question of my keeping you at a distance. Don't mind my crotchets, Miss Farrell, I have a fancy to have you here with me at the obsequies of all this sixteenth-in-the-twentieth century nonsense. At forty-six, I still have my dreams. You 'll be good enough to indulge me, won't you?" "If that's all, I think I can indulge you. But is there nothing I can do to be of some real help?" "Nothing but to lend me your companionship during this trying ordeal. You might fill out some labels--you 'll find them in that handy-box on the desk--with the words 'hundred' and 'fifty', and I 'll gum them on to these slips for the money rolls." For a few minutes I busied myself with the labels. After that, I watched his swift counting of bills and silver, and his ordering them into neat packages and rolls. Before long, however, I took matters into my own gloved hand and, without so much as "by your leave", began the recount, labelling as I went on. Within an hour the work was finished and a smaller tin box packed. "How much did you make it?" he asked, before locking the box. "Three thousand four hundred and twenty-two, just." "The rate of interest I charge them is two per cent, and this amount will reduce that greatly." "Do you mean that you are letting them have the land, supplying money to help them cultivate it, and charging only two per cent interest?" "Why should I charge more? They are the ones who are doing the land good. You see, the use of this rent-accumulation to reduce their interest rate for the first year or two, is a part of my general scheme. They are to apply their half-yearly rents as purchase money for their land; this is in the deeds. Within a comparatively short period, this assures to each of them a freehold. The valuation I have put on their land is regulated by the amount of work they have put out on it, and the time they have lived on it. "Take old Mère Guillardeau, for instance. She has an 'arpent' now of her very own. She, and her father, and her father's father have lived on these seigniory lands for nearly two hundred years. I value that land by discounting the value of the service rendered to it in four generations. Her little 'cabane' is her own, having been built by her father. The land is worth to her all the accumulated value of those generations of toil; to me, who have never done anything for it, neither I nor my fathers, it is worth exactly ten dollars--now, don't laugh!--her yearly rent." "And that buys it!" I exclaimed, wondering what kind of finance this might be, frenzied or sane.