."

"How could it have?" inquired Mrs. Smith.

"This is all I can think of. Before we can sell that land or any of our
land we must have the consent of all the living heirs or else the title
isn't good, as you very well know. Now Emily Leonard and her descendants
are the only heirs missing. This man says that the child, Mary, is Emily
Leonard's grandchild and that Emily and her son, the child's father, are
dead. That would mean that if we wanted to sell that land we'd be
obliged to have the signatures of my sisters and my nephew, Stanley, and
myself, and also of the guardian of this child. Of course Hapgood will
say he's the child's guardian. Do you suppose, Mrs. Smith, that he's
going to sign any deed that gives you that land? Not much! He'll say
it's for the child's best interests that the land be not sold now,
because it contains valuable clay or whatever it is he thinks he has
found there. Then he'll offer to buy the land himself and he'll be
willing enough to sign the deed then."

"But _we_ might not be," interposed Miss Maria.

"I should say not," returned her brother emphatically, "but he'd
probably make a lot of trouble for us and be constantly appealing to us
on the ground that we ought to sell the land for the child's good--or he
might even say for Stanley's good or our good, the brazen, persistent
animal."

"Brother," remonstrated Miss Maria. "You forget that you may be speaking
of the uncle of our little cousin."

"Little cousin nothing!" retorted Mr. Clark fiercely. "It's all very
nice for the Mortons to find that that charming girl who takes care of
the Belgian baby is a relative. This is a very different proposition!
However, I suppose you girls--" meaning by this term the two ladies of
more than seventy--"won't be happy unless you have the youngster here,
so you might as well send for her, but you'd better have the length of
her visit distinctly understood."

"We might say a week," suggested Miss Eliza hesitatingly.

"Say a week, and say it emphatically," approved her brother, and trotted
off to his study, leaving the ladies to compose, with Mrs. Smith's help,
a note that would not be so cordial that Brother would forbid its being
sent, but that would nevertheless give a hint of their kindly feeling to
the forlorn child, so roughly cared for by her strange uncle.

Mary Smith went to them, and made a visit that could not be called a
success in any way. She was painfully conscious of the differen