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288 stand up for a regular income than accept the twenty-five pounds off-hand?"

"Yes, if they'll do it," she admitted.

"Of course they must. They'll jump at that settlement, fearing you will demand the whole Belmont estate, besides the ducal coronet and the family diamonds."

There was great jubilation in Pebblesdale when the London lawyers, in their next letter, formally capitulated, sending the twenty-five pounds as requested, and advising him that a sum of money had been paid to a noted insurance company, who would send every Thursday a postal order each to Mr. and Mrs. Stover. If Tom had wished to stand for membership in the Rural District Council, he would have been elected without a single dissenting vote so far as Pebblesdale was concerned, and to show that sudden wealth does not possess the corroding influence attributed to it, Mrs. Stover, assured of a steady income, became much less of a termagant than she had hitherto been accounted.

The Professor never attended the nightly gatherings at the pub after his first visit, but on the other hand he did not open his box of scientific books, so far as Tom Pitts could learn, although he actually borrowed from the latter some of the novels which had been brought from London. Tom laughed genially as he handed them over.

"Is Miss Drummond able to paint, when you are stretched on the sands reading to her?"