to call you anything I like--just Phyl-- Well, then, I want
to tell you what we have to do. It's not my wishes I have to carry out but
your father's. He wanted to let this house."

"Let Kilgobbin!"

"Yes, that is what he said. He wanted to let it to a good tenant who would
look after it till you are of age. I think he was right. You see, you
could not live here all alone, and if the place was shut up it would
deteriorate."

"It would go to wrack and ruin," said Hennessey.

"And the servants?" said Phyl.

"We will look after them," said Pinckney, "the new tenant might take them
on; if not, we'll give them time to get new places."

"Byrne's been here before I was born," said the girl, with dry lips, "so
has Mrs. Driscoll. They are part of the place; it would ruin their lives
to send them away."

"Well," said Pinckney, "I don't want to be the ogre to ruin their lives;
you can do anything you like about them. If the new tenant didn't take
them, you might pension them. I want you to be perfectly happy in your
mind and I want you to feel that though I am, so to speak, the guardian of
your money, still, that money is yours."

She was beginning to understand now that not only was he striving to
soothe her feelings and propitiate her, but that he was very much in
earnest in this business, and crowding through her mind came a great wave
of revulsion against herself.

Phyl's nature was such that whilst always ready to fly into wrath and
easily moved to bitter resentment, one touch of kindness, one soft word,
had the power to disarm her.

One soft word from an antagonist had the power to wound her far more than
a dozen words of bitterness.

Filled now with absolutely superfluous self-reproach, she stood for a
moment unable to speak. Then she said, raising her eyes to his:

"I am sure you mean to do what is for the best.--It was stupid of me--"

"Not a bit," said the other, cheerfully. "I want to do the things that
will make you happy--that's all. I'm a business man and I know the value
of money. Money is just worth the amount of happiness it brings."

"Faith, that's true," said Hennessey, who had taken his seat again and was
in the act of lighting a cigar.

"When I was a boy," went on the other. "I was always kept hard up by my
father. It was like pulling gum teeth to get the price of a fishing rod
out of him. When I think of all the fun I might have bought with a few
dollars, it makes me wild. You can't buy fun