time. During these months his screw had become
known, having been pushed persistently by the enterprising young lawyer
who aspired to patent business in the beginning, and having held its own
since by sheer force of merit. The enterprising young lawyer had,
however, recently forsaken law for politics; he had gone out to one of
the Territories with the intention of returning some day as senator when
the Territory should be a State (it is but fair to add that his chance
is excellent). But he had, of course, no further knowledge of the screw,
and Bro now managed the business himself. This letter was from a firm
largely engaged in the manufacture of machinery, and it contained an
offer for the screw and patent outright--ten thousand dollars.

"I shall never invent anything more," thought Bro, the words of the
letter writing themselves vacantly on his brain. "Something has gone
wrong inside my head in some way, and the saw-mill will be all I shall
ever attend to again."

Then he paused.

"It would be worth more money in the end if I could keep it," he said to
himself. "But even a larger sum might not serve so well later, perhaps."
It was all to be Marion's in either case--which would be best? Then he
remembered her sudden pallor, and that decided him. "He shall have it
now," he said. "How lucky that he was content with ten!"

Some men would have given the money also in the same circumstances; but
they would have given it to Marion. It was characteristic of Bro's deep
and minute knowledge of the girl, and what would be for her happiness,
that he planned to give the money to the man, and thus weight down and
steady the lighter nature.

He dwelt a long time upon ways and means; he was several days in making
up his mind. At last he decided what to do; and did it.

Three weeks afterward a letter came to Wilbarger, directed in a clear
handwriting to "Mr. Lawrence Broughton Vickery." It was from a Northern
lawyer, acting for another party, and contained an offer for Vickery
Island with its house, cotton-fields, and marsh; price offered, ten
thousand dollars. The lawyer seemed to be acquainted with the size of
the island, the condition of the fields and out-buildings; he mentioned
that the purchase was made with the idea of reviving the cotton-culture
immediately, similar attempts on the part of Rhode Island manufacturers,
who wished to raise their own cotton, having succeeded on the
sea-islands farther north. Lawrence, in a w