it again as it was. The South's a big industrial region now.
Not only cotton--ore and coal and machinery. We supply the North and East
with pig-iron, machinery, God knows what. Berknowles was very keen on
Southern industries, regularly bitten. He was talking of selling off here
and coming to settle in Charleston when the illness took him-- and that
reminds me."

He took a document from his pocket. "This is the will. I've kept it on my
person since I started for here. It's not the thing to trust to a handbag.
It's in correct form, I believe. Temperley, our solicitor, made it out for
him and it leaves everything to the girl when she's twenty--but just read
it and see what you think."

He lit another cigarette whilst Hennessey, putting on his glasses and
pushing his dessert plate away, spread the will on the table.

Pinckney watched him as he read it. Hennessey was a new order of being to
him. This easy-going, slipshod, garrulous gentleman, fond of his glass of
wine, contrasted strangely with the typical lawyer of the States. Flushed
and not in his business mood, the man of law cast his eyes over the
document before him, reading bits of it here and there and seeming not
inclined to bother himself by a concentration of his full energies on the
matter.

Then, suddenly, his eyes became fixed on a paragraph which he re-read as
though puzzled by the meaning of it. Then he looked up at the other over
his glasses.

"Why, what's this?" said he. "He has made _you_ Phyl's guardian. _You!_"

Pinckney laughed.

"Yes, that was the chief thing that brought me over. He has made me her
guardian, till she's twenty, and he made me promise to look after her
interests and see to all business arrangements. He said he had no near
relations in Ireland, and he said that he'd sooner trust the devil than
the few relatives he had, that they were Papists--that is to say Roman
Catholics--he seemed to fear them like the deuce and their influence on
the girl. I couldn't understand him. I've never seen any harm in Roman
Catholics; there are loads in the States and they seem to be just as good
citizens as the others, better, for they seem to stick tighter by their
religion. Anyhow, there you are. Berknowles had them on the brain and
nothing would do him but I must come over to look after the business
myself."

Hennessey, with his finger on the will, had been staring at Pinckney
during this. He looked down now at the document and then up again.