"The chance, eh? What chance, Mam’selle?" "The chance to—to get it back!" The screened eyes seemed to gather all the old, familiar wretchedness into their own misery. Longville laughed, not brutally, but this was too much, coming as it did from Morey’s daughter. "Why, Mam’selle," he said, "the interest hasn’t been paid in years." "The interest—and how much is that?" murmured Jo. "Oh, a matter of a couple of hundreds." This was flung out off-handedly. "But if—if I could pay that and promise to keep it up, would you give me the chance? My money is as good as another’s and the first time I fail, Captain, I’ll fetch Cecile over to the cabin and sell myself to you." This was not a gracious way to put it and it made Longville scowl, still it amused him mightily. There was a bit of the sport in him, too, and the words, wild and improbable as they were, set in motion various ideas. If Jo could save from the wreck of things in the past enough money to pay for the funeral might she not, the sly minx, have saved more? Stolen was what Longville really thought. Ready money, as much as he could lay hands on, was the dearest thing in life to him and the fun of having any one scrimping and delving to procure it for him was a joy not to be lightly thrown away. And might he not accomplish all he had in mind by giving Jo her chance? He did not want the land and the ramshackle house, except for what they would bring in cash; and if Mam’selle must slave to earn, might she not be willing to slave in his kitchen as well as in another’s? To be sure he would have, under this new dispensation, to pay her, or credit her, with a certain amount—but he could make it desirably small and should she rebel he would threaten her, in a kindly way, with disinclination to carry on further business relations with her. So Longville pursed up his thin lips and considered. "But the money, the interest money, Mam’selle, the chance depends upon that." Jo turned and walked to the house. Presently she came back with a cracked teapot in her hands. "In this," she said slowly as if repeating words suggested to her, "there are two hundred and forty-two dollars and seventy-nine cents, Captain. All through the years I have saved and saved. I’ve sold my linens and woollens to the city folks—I’ve lied—but now it will buy the chance." A slow anger grew in Longville’s eyes. "And you did this, while owing everything to me?" he asked. "It was father who owed you; your money went for drink, for anything and everything but safety for Cecile and me. The work of my own hands—is mine!" "Not so say our good laws!" sneered Longville, "and now I could take it all from you and turn you out on the world." "And will—you?" Jo asked. She was a miserable figure standing there with her outstretched hands holding the cracked teapot.