to?" It was not clear yet. "Then you WANT to?"

She went over her ground patiently. His face brightened with
comprehension.

"I see! Well, now, that puts a different face on it," he said. "Of
course, I want the deal to go through," he admitted, "and if you can
talk your father over--"

"That's what I want you to do!" Martie assured him gaily.

He laughed in answer.

"He don't pay any attention to me!" he confessed. "I's telling him only
yes'day that it wasn't good business to hang onto that piece. I told--"

"But Clifford," she suggested, "I want you to take this tack. I want
you to tell him that the town has a sentiment about it--the old Monroe
place, you know. Tell him that people feel it OUGHT to be public
property, and then, when he agrees, whip some sort of paper out of your
pocket, and have him sign it then and there!"

Clifford Frost was not quick of thought, but he was shrewd, and his
smile now was compounded of admiration for the scheme and the schemer
alike.

"I declare you're quite a business woman, Martie!" he said. "It's a
pity Len hasn't got it, too. I b'lieve I can work your Pa that way;
anyway, I'll try it! I supposed you girls were hanging on like grim
death to that piece--"

After this the conversation rambled pleasantly; presently, in the midst
of a discussion of mortgages, he took one of the roses, and called her
attention to it. It had had some special care; Martie could honestly
admire it. Clifford told her to keep it, and her blue eyes met his
friendly ones, behind the big glasses, as she pinned it on her blouse.

"I declare you've got quite a different look since you came back,
Martie," he said. "You're quite a New Yorker! I said to Ruthie a while
back, that there was a strange lady in town; I'd seen her with Mrs. Joe
Hawkes. 'Why, Papa,' she says, 'that's Mrs. Bannister!' I assure you I
could hardly believe it. You've took off considerable flesh, haven't
you?"

"I've had my share," Martie answered in the country phrase, with a
smile and a sigh.

"Well, I guess that's so, too!" he said quickly with an answering sigh.
"What was the--the cause?" he asked delicately. "He was a big, strong
fellow. I remember him quite well; friend of Rodney's."

He told her circumstantially, in return for her brief confidences, of
his wife's death. How she had not been well, and how she had refused
the regular dinner on a certain night, first mentioned as "the
Tuesday," and then corrected to "the Wed