“Read on,” said Martin, impatiently, and barely able to control himself at this heartless commentary. “Egad! I 'd have sworn I had read all this before, except these same suggestions about not exacting the rents, building hospitals, and so forth; that _is_ new. And why does she say, 'Don't write by deputy'? Who _was_ your deputy?” “Kate Henderson has written for me latterly.” “And I should say she 's quite equal to that sort of thing; she dashes off my mother's notes at score, and talks away, too, all the time she 's writing.” “That is not the question before us,” said Martin, sternly. “When I sent for you to read that letter, it was that you might advise and counsel me what course to take.” “If you can afford to give away a year's income in the shape of rent, and about as much more in the shape of a donation, of course you 're quite free to do it. I only wish that your generosity would begin at home, though; for I own to you I 'm very hard-up at this moment.” This the Captain spoke with an attempted jocularity which decreased with every word, till it subsided into downright seriousness ere he finished. “So far from being in a position to do an act of munificence, I am sorely pressed for money,” said Martin. The Captain started; the half-smile with which he had begun to receive this speech died away on his lips as he asked, “Is this really the case?” “Most truly so,” said Martin, solemnly. “But how, in the name of everything absurd--how is this possible? By what stratagem could you have spent five thousand a year at Cro' Martin, and your estate was worth almost three times as much? Giving a very wide margin for waste and robbery, I 'd say five thousand could not be made away with there in a twelvemonth.” “Your question only shows me how carelessly you must have read my letters to you, in India,” said Martin; “otherwise you could not have failed to see the vast improvements we have been carrying out on the property,--the roads, the harbors, the new quarries opened, the extent of ground covered by plantation,--all the plans, in fact, which Mary had matured--” “Mary! Mary!” exclaimed the Captain. “And do you tell me that all these things were done at the instigation of a young girl of nineteen or twenty, without any knowledge, or even advice--” “And who said she was deficient in knowledge?” cried Martin. “Take up the map of the estate; see the lands she has reclaimed; look at the swamps you used to shoot snipe over bearing corn crops; see the thriving village, where once the boatmen were starving, for they dared not venture out to sea without a harbor against bad weather.” “Tell me the cost of all this. What's the figure?” said the Captain; “that's the real test of all these matters, for if _your_ income could only feed this outlay, I pronounce the whole scheme the maddest thing in Christendom. My mother's taste for carved oak cabinets and historical pictures is the quintessence of wisdom in comparison.”