"What's all the racket about?"
"It's about money," Mr. Martel roused himself to explain--"the grossest
and most material thing in the world. Years ago Eleanor's father and I
entered into a purely personal arrangement by which he advanced me a few
thousand dollars in a time of temporary financial depression, and as a
mere matter of form I put up this house as security. Had the dear lad
lived, nothing more would ever have been said about it. He was the soul
of generosity, a prince among men. But, unfortunately, at his death he
left his mother Eleanor's trustee."
"And she has simply _hounded_ Papa Claude," Eleanor broke in. "She has
tried to make him pay interest on that old note every single year, when
she knew I didn't need the money in the least. And now she had notified
him she will not renew the note on any terms."
"She can't collect what you haven't got, can she?" Quin asked.
"She can sell the roof over our heads," said Papa Claude, with streaming
eyes lifted to the object referred to. "She can scatter my beloved family
and drive me back into the treadmill of teaching. And all through this
blessed, innocent child, who would give all she has in the world to see
her poor old grandfather happy!"
Again Eleanor, moved to a passion of sympathy, flung her arms around him,
declaring that if they made him pay the note she would refund every penny
of it the day she was twenty-one.
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