And when I’m dead you’ll have what I have.... That’s the proposition--or part of it.” The last sentence of his long speech was delivered with the snap of finality. The speaker leaned back in the rocker, extended his legs in order to more easily get at his trousers pockets, thrust his hands into those pockets, and looked at his niece, then at Reliance and then back at Esther. He did not look at Mr. Clark; the latter might have been one of the pair of crockery lambs on the mantel as far as receiving attention was concerned. Yet it was Millard who broke the silence. “Well--I _vow_!” he exclaimed, fervently. His sister put him back in place just as she might have replaced one of the lambs. “Hush, Millard!” she ordered. “Wait, Esther!... So that’s only part of your proposition, is it?” she asked, addressing Townsend. “And what’s the other part?” The great man jingled the change in his pocket. “It’s just this,” he replied. “I realize, of course, that Esther has been here with you, Reliance, so long that you’re about the same as a mother to her. She would miss you--at first, anyhow--and, for the matter of that, I suppose she ought to have a woman to talk to. I never had a girl of my own to bring up, or a boy either, so far as that goes--I wish to God I had--and there are some things a woman can advise her about better than a man. If I didn’t know you had sense, Reliance--as well as the stubbornness of a balky horse--I shouldn’t think of saying what I am going to say. I want you to shut up this house here. It is mine and I can sell it, I guess; or rent it, anyhow. And if I can’t do either I can afford to let it stand empty. Shut it up and come along with Esther to my place. There’s room enough there, too much room. I’ll make a home for you and pay your bills. Yes, and I’ll guarantee you’ll be more comfortable there, and have less care, than you ever had in your life. That’s the other half of my offer. Think it over.” During this blunt statement of an astonishing proposal the face of Millard Fillmore Clark might have been worth looking at, had any one dreamed of doing such a thing. At first it had expressed eagerness and overwhelming curiosity. Then, when Foster Townsend extended the invitation--or delivered the command, for it was quite as much an order as a request--to his half-sister, the curiosity was superseded by joyful excitement. And now, when the speech from the rocking-chair throne had ended without mention of his own name, or even acknowledgment of his connection with the household, all symptoms of the aforementioned emotions were superseded by those of anxiety and alarmed indignation. “Here! hold on!” he protested, springing to his feet. “What’s that you’re sayin’, Cap’n Foster? You’re cal’latin’ to take Reliance and--and Esther to--to live along with you and--and--” Reliance lifted a hand. “Ssh!” she said.