in her life she was
tasting real loneliness. She wandered over the snow-patched fields
down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated
only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for
duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty
of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the
sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to
think, and thought was a torment.

On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris--a cheerful, even
rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed.
As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a
spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out
right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he
enclosed a present of twenty dollars for Jill to spend in the
Brookport shops.

The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr.
Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house
nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr.
Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and
this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an
agent's fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr. Mariner
was not a man who despised money in small quantities.

There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first
intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing
over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill's unresponsiveness when
confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that
she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more
magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was
what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in
several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house,
its dairy, its sleeping-porches--everything, in fact, that a sensible girl
could want. Mr. Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would
fail again to-day.

"They're asking a hundred and five thousand," he said, "but I know
they'd take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash
down, they would go even lower. It's a fine house. You could entertain
there. Mrs. Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but
she wouldn't go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you'd better
make up your mind quick. A place