But, up in the sitting-room, William Henry Bulkley, rampant and blindly furious while charging Mrs. Lawton with insincerity and bad faith, had flung the engagement of Dorothy in her astonished face, and it was the screech of the stricken Letitia that faintly reached them. But Mr. Lawton, whose mind moved slowly, and who, though undoubtedly American, was yet no "guesser," being all at sea as to the meaning of Galt's sudden change from bitter disappointment to an exuberance of spirits he had not thought the grave young man capable of, repeated, more urgently: "Go on, please, go on!" And, in the handsome weak old face and piteous faded eyes raised to him, Galt saw again the likeness to Dorothy, and, with a pang, he thought: "This is what years of sorrow and privation might put into her fair face," and swiftly prayed, "protect, defend her, Lord, in part at least, through my poor human agency," and then plunged into the simple story, whose telling might change the color of the sky for him and make the old world new for his young sweetheart and himself. "You remember, sir, I told you before, that it was through Mr. Wheatleigh's friendship for my dead father that I was first taken into the office where so many wished to secure a berth. He advanced me, too, as rapidly as he could, because he knew the mother I worked so hard for would not be with me long. Well, the only property my father left me, besides a small cottage, was an extensive sweep of swamp, over in our neighboring State. This inheritance was considered a great jest, and was continually referred to as my 'mosquito foundry.' The only harvest ever gathered from its acres was a harvest of poor and pointless jokes. My mother and I used to spend two or three months in the cottage during the summer, and the rest of the year an old couple used it rent free, save for keeping the small shell in repair. That my father had twice refused, when the neighboring town was making spasmodic spurts of growth, to sell portions of his swampy holdings, made people think him quite off his head. But my mother told me he had once declared the time would come when thousands of dollars would be offered eagerly where hundreds were then spoken of grudgingly. She had said, 'Why, do you believe these swamps can ever be made healthy enough to attract the wealthy?' and he had answered, 'My dear wife, wealthy people often have other uses for property than the making of homes. Nor do I anticipate a sudden fad among millionnaires for personally cultivating cranberries. Nevertheless, there's money lying in those mud-flats and out there in the meadows--money waiting for a Galt; and if we don't gather it up, Leslie will.'