"Do you think I'm without a relative in the world and must leave my money and my land to Mother Church, is that it?"

  "I have no idea," he said tranquilly, pouring himself more tea.

  "As a matter of fact, I have a brother with a large and thriving family of sons."

  "How nice for you," he said demurely.

  "When I married I was quite without worldly goods. I knew I'd never marry well in Ireland, where a woman has to have breeding and background to catch a rich husband. So I worked my fingers to the bone to save my passage money to a land where the rich men aren't so fussy. All I had when I got here were a face and a figure and a better brain than women are supposed to have, and they were adequate to catch Michael Carson, who was a rich fool. He doted on me until the day he died."

  "And your brother?" he prompted, thinking she was going off at a tangent. "My brother is eleven years younger than I am, which would make him fifty-four now. We're the only two still alive. I hardly know him; he was a small child when I left Galway. At present he lives in New Zealand, though if he emigrated to make his fortune he hasn't succeeded. "But last night when the station hand brought me the news that Arthur Teviot had packed his traps and gone, I suddenly thought of Padraic. Here I am, not getting any younger, with no family around me. And it occurred to me that Paddy is an experienced man of the land, without the means to own land. Why not, I thought, write to him and ask him to bring himself and his sons here? When I die he'll inherit Drogheda and Michar Limited, as he's my only living relative closer than some unknown cousins back in Ireland." She smiled. "It seems silly to wait, doesn't it? He might as well come now as later, get used to running sheep on the black soil plains, which I'm sure is quite different from sheep in New Zealand. Then when I'm gone he can step into my shoes without feeling the pinch." Head lowered, she watched Father Ralph closely.

  "I wonder you didn't think of it earlier," he said. "Oh, I did. But until recently I thought the last thing I wanted was a lot of vultures waiting anxiously for me to breathe my last. Only lately the day of my demise seems a lot closer than it used to, and I feel . . . oh, I don't know. As if it might be nice to be surrounded by people of my own flesh and blood."

  "What's the matter, do you think you're ill?" he asked quickly, a real concern in his eyes.