e stood over him, and then leaned back in
his chair and looked up at her.

"I don't want you should begin at all. What do you mean, Silas?" She
rested against the side of his desk.

"Well, I don't know as I mean anything. But shouldn't you like to
build? Everybody builds, at least once in a lifetime."

"Where is your lot? They say it's unhealthy, over there."

Up to a certain point in their prosperity Mrs. Lapham had kept strict
account of all her husband's affairs; but as they expanded, and ceased
to be of the retail nature with which women successfully grapple, the
intimate knowledge of them made her nervous. There was a period in
which she felt that they were being ruined, but the crash had not come;
and, since his great success, she had abandoned herself to a blind
confidence in her husband's judgment, which she had hitherto felt
needed her revision. He came and went, day by day, unquestioned. He
bought and sold and got gain. She knew that he would tell her if ever
things went wrong, and he knew that she would ask him whenever she was
anxious.

"It ain't unhealthy where I've bought," said Lapham, rather enjoying
her insinuation. "I looked after that when I was trading; and I guess
it's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is here, anyway. I got
that lot for you, Pert; I thought you'd want to build on the Back Bay
some day."

"Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased inwardly, but not going to
show it, as she would have said. "I guess you want to build there
yourself." She insensibly got a little nearer to her husband. They
liked to talk to each other in that blunt way; it is the New England
way of expressing perfect confidence and tenderness.

"Well, I guess I do," said Lapham, not insisting upon the unselfish
view of the matter. "I always did like the water side of Beacon.
There ain't a sightlier place in the world for a house. And some day
there's bound to be a drive-way all along behind them houses, between
them and the water, and then a lot there is going to be worth the gold
that will cover it--COIN. I've had offers for that lot, Pert, twice
over what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't you want to ride over
there some afternoon with me and see it?" "I'm satisfied where we be,
Si," said Mrs. Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in her
pathos at her husband's kindness. She sighed anxiously, for she felt
the trouble a woman knows in view of any great change. They had often
talk