mistaken and misjudged us; but in one thing I have
understood and sympathized with thee, always, and with all my heart: the
passionate love which a Kaye must feel for his home and all this."

There was pathos and dignity in the quiet gesture which Salome Kaye
swept over the apartment that had been her own for all her life; but
there was also courage and determination in her bearing as she walked
out of it, leaning lightly upon Amy's shoulder, and with Hallam limping
beside her. Somehow, too, Archibald Wingate did not feel quite as
jubilant and successful as he had anticipated, and he welcomed, as an
agreeable diversion, the approach of a buggy, conveying his friend,
Lawyer Smith, to witness the lease and to give any needful advice in the
matter.

"Hello, Smith. Quite a rainy day, isn't it? I've been studying that row
of old pines and spruces. How do you think the avenue'd look if I was to
have 'em trimmed up, say about as high as your head, from the ground?
Give a better view of the old Ardsley Valley, wouldn't it?"

The lawyer stepped down from his vehicle, backward and cautiously, then
turned, screwed up his eyes, and replied deliberately:--

"Well, it might; and then again it mightn't. It's taken a good many
years for those branches to grow, and once they're off they can't be put
back again. If I was in your place, I'd rather let things slide easy for
a spell; then--go as you please. Have you come to a settlement? Will
they quit without lawing?"

"Yes, they'll quit at once. Say, woman! You, Cleena, bring me a hatchet,
will you? I'll just lop off a little limb on one side, and see the
effect. Hurry up!"

"Faith, I'll fetch it!" responded Cleena, loudly. But when she did so,
she advanced with such a menacing gesture upon the new proprietor of her
old home that he shrank back, doubtful of her intent. "Ain't it enough
to break hearts, without breakin' the helpless trees your own forebears
planted long by?--Aha, my fine gineral, so you're bad penny back again?
Well, then, you're the handle o' time. By the way you tacked up them
boughs, you'll be clever at packin'. Come by. I'll give ye a job."

Thus, partly to Lawyer Smith's caution and partly to Cleena's
indignation, the fine evergreens of Fairacres owed the fact that they,
for the time being, escaped mutilation.

CHAPTER VII.

THE "SPITE HOUSE" OF BAREACRE.

By nightfall it was all over; and Cleena, Hallam, and Amy, with their
self-constituted bodyg