Margaret bent all her energies to readjusting the household—her household now—in preparation for Walter's visit, to which she could, under these changed conditions, look forward with eager pleasure. But here again she ran upon a snag.

"Every cloud has a silver lining," Daniel sentimentally remarked, preparatory to the discussion of the new furniture necessary to replace what his sisters had removed. "You can now have your own things sent up from the Berkeley Hill home. Half of all that old mahogany, silver, rugs, books, and pictures. I couldn't afford to buy such valuable furniture as you've got there. And solid silver, too."

"Strip Berkeley Hill, my sister's home! and bring those things into this house!" Margaret almost gasped. "But don't you see, Daniel, this isn't the sort of house for old colonial furniture? It would be incongruous. What this house needs is early Victorian."

"The freightage on your things won't come to nearly so much as new furniture would cost, even though we bought the grade of stuff the girls had here. And you can tell your sister Harriet that I'll pay for the crating and packing. It isn't right that I should, for they've had the use of your things all this time, but you can tell her I'm perfectly willing to do that. Or, never mind writing to her; we can arrange it with Walter when he comes."

So strong was Margaret's sentiment for Berkeley Hill that it would have hurt her as much to see its familiar furnishings in this alien setting in New Munich as it would have hurt Harriet to strip her home. She did not, however, pursue the discussion with Daniel. Walter would be privately informed as to her wishes in the matter; and the places left bare by Jennie's and Sadie's departure would remain bare until Daniel saw fit to buy furniture to fill them.

Meantime, she managed, though with difficulty, to prepare, with what furniture she had, a comfortable room for her brother-in-law.

"If Daniel were poor, I'd feel I ought to help him out, painful as it would be to me to see any part of Berkeley Hill installed here. But he doesn't need to be helped out. Far from it!"

Daniel assumed Walter's visit to mean that at last this slow-moving Southerner had got round to the point of noticing his insistent demands for a settlement of Margaret's share in Berkeley Hill. So he awaited his arrival with much complacency.

Walter Eastman reached New Munich at ten o'clock one Wednesday morning and Margaret met him at the station. By the time Daniel came home to luncheon at one o'clock the "important Berkeley Hill business" of which Walter had telegraphed was entirely concluded between him and Margaret, as were also a few other items of importance.

"For the present, Walter, I prefer not to tell Daniel about this news you have brought me," she suggested at the end of their interview, which, by the way, found her rather white and agitated.

"But of course you understand, my dear," returned Walter, "that you can't keep him in ignorance of it long?"

"Of course not. Just a few days. Perhaps not so long."

"Any special reason for deferring such a pleasant announcement?"

"I want to spring it on him as a palliative, a sort of compensation, for something else which won't prove so pleasant."

"Ah, by the way," said Walter with apparent irrelevancy, crossing his long legs as they sat together on a sofa of the now very bare sitting-room, "what was the meaning, Margaret, of all that bluff you put up on me about Western gold mines owned by a friend of yours who thought perhaps his step-mother had a legal claim, and so forth. Quite a case you made out!"

"It's a true case. I'm much interested in it. And Daniel's clerk happened to know that the land was vested in the step-mother's husband at the time of his death and that he died without a will. What I want you to tell me now is this: can any power on earth keep that widow from her one third interest in those coal—gold mines, if she claim her share?"

"No, if she has never signed away her rights."

"She hasn't done that."

"You say your husband's clerk was working on the case? Then it's the case of a client of his?"

"Yes, the case of a client of his."

"And a friend of yours, you said?"

"Yes. His clerk wasn't exactly working on it; she simply told me, when I asked her, that she knew the mining land to have been vested absolutely in the husband."

"And you wrote me that the step-mother has not had her share because she's too ignorant to claim it, and that she's in want. That right?"

"Yes."

"I should say, then, no mercy should be shown those who have defrauded her. They should be made to pay up, especially as it was this old woman's hard labour and self-sacrifice in the first place (so you wrote) that saved the home and land for the family."

"Tell me, Walter, dear, how shall the old woman set about getting her dues?"

"Simply hire a lawyer to bring suit."

"But her religion forbids her to go to law."

"Then you're stumped. Nothing to be done."

"But I've learned that sometimes the New Mennonites allow some one else to bring suit for them."

"Aha!" laughed Walter. "All right. Let her have her lawyer bring suit for her."

"Can he surely recover her share?"

"Surely, if all the facts you've given me are correct, her share can be reclaimed without a struggle."

"I'm certain that all the facts I've given you are correct."

"You seem to be certain of a good deal about these far-distant acquaintances of whom I never heard, Margaret."

Margaret cast down her eyes, her face flushing; but after an instant: "Thank you, Walter," she said. "I'm very much indebted to you. One more favour: kindly refrain from mentioning this case of the silver mines to Daniel."

"'Silver' mines?"

"Gold mines. Ah, here he comes now! And not a word, remember, of the news you've brought me!"

"All right, my dear."

"And as for the furnishings of Berkeley Hill; sit tight and don't argue. Daniel always comes round to my way in the end, but it takes a bit of time and diplomacy."

"Poor Daniel, he's like the rest of us, henpecked lot that we are!" Walter teased her. "He comes round to your way because he's got to; no escape! But if............