Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/189

Rh he took up the tale himself, going over the ground that, very evidently, he had pondered and argued and weighed within himself a hundred times.

"I had much and he had nothing, he was in real want and had a wife and two children besides. There was, as Tom says, some real basis for his claim since the title had never been made quite clear. And there is, further, no more bitter thing than a family quarrel, a division over the settlement of property, this one asking for what is more than his, that one fighting to hold what is not his own—no, it was unthinkable. So we settled the matter peaceably enough. I built a new house above him on the hill and he settled down in the place that had been home to all of us. He seemed to have repented of the wrong he had done and we were ready to forget it. I do not think that I ever doubted the honesty of his purpose, at first. Then it came to my wishing for some of the old possessions for my new house and he vowed that every one of them was his."

"I know," said Janet, nodding quickly. "He wouldn't give up the pictures, though he did not care for them himself. They were stored in the dust and dirt under the eaves and he asked me if you had sent me to see where he kept them. He only wanted them because they were yours."

"I suppose he meant to sell them some day," Cousin Jasper answered, "for there were several that were of almost as much value as the house itself. But less than ever was I willing to bicker and