"It is only about two thousand acres,--a mere handful of land to a Northern millionaire, who buys land along the Hudson and in the Catskills and Adirondacks of ten times that amount, but that is a very decent size for a Southern plantation. But the value is in the kind of timber. It is long-leaf yellow pine, which produces turpentine and rosin first, by the orchard process, then what is left is suitable for the lumber men, and the fallen trees and stumps for the new process of making turpentine. My plan was to sell the turpentine rights to the orchard people for, say, three years, then sell the timber, and afterward sell the stumpage and refuse to the patent people, or perhaps erect a plant myself. There is a tremendous profit in turpentine and a constant and ready market." Mr. Howard sat in a large armchair, with his finger-tips together and his head bent forward, looking at the girl from under his heavy eyebrows. He was amazed at her statement of Guildford’s possibilities. Hitherto he had regarded her unknown plan as probably only a woman’s sentimental idea, and doubtless wild and impracticable. "You say that the timber has been untouched for two hundred years?" "Practically untouched. We had it examined four years ago, and I have heard of nothing since." "Is any of this land suitable for cotton?" "Yes, for both cotton and rice, and I should raise both. There is no reason to my mind why a Southerner should not be as thrifty with every acre of ground as the Northerner is, nor why every inch should not be made to yield in America as it does in France." "Right! right! And the Southerners will accept such incendiary sentiments from you, because you are one of them, but, when I ventured something on the same order, but much more mild, I was called ’a damned Yankee,’ who wanted to ’make truck-farmers out of gentlemen.’" "Oh, oh!" laughed Carolina, merrily. "How like them that sounds! You know, dear Mr. Howard, they think we have no gentlemen in the North." "T-they aren’t far from it," cried Kate. "There are f-few gentlemen anywhere in the world, according to m-my definition of one." "You say Guildford is sold?" said Mr. Howard. "Yes, Sherman was obliged to mortgage it, but he did so without knowing how dearly I loved it. Then some one bought the mortgage and foreclosed it." "Why, who could have done such a thing? There must have been a motive. Has coal been discovered on any of the surrounding property?" "Not that I know of," said Carolina, in a guarded tone. "Then there must have been some motive in the mind of the purchaser," said Mr. Howard, decisively. Carolina was silent. "Can you throw any light on the subject, Carol?" he persisted, but his manner was so kindly that Carolina could not take offence.