"You will when I tell you. He as much as offered a thousand dollars for
that land. My crimps! a thousand! think of that! I presume likely you
wouldn't take that, would you, Ros?"

"Sim, I'll tell you, as I told Captain Jed, that land is not for sale."

I tried to make that statement firm and sharp enough to penetrate even
his wooden head; but he merely winked again.

"All right," he whispered, hastily, "all right. I guess perhaps you're
correct in hangin' on. Still, a thousand is a lot of money, even after
you take out my little commission. But you know best. You put your trust
in me. I'll keep her jumpin'. I understand. Good-by."

He went out hurriedly, and, though I shouted after him, he only waved
and ducked behind a beach-plum bush. He did not believe me serious in
my refusal to sell; neither did Dean, or Colton, or, apparently, any one
else. They all thought me merely shrewd, a sharp trader driving a hard
bargain, as they would have done in my place. They might think so, if
they wished; I should not explain. As a matter of fact, I could not have
explained my attitude, even to myself.

Yet this very attitude made a difference, a perceptible difference, in
my position in Denboro. I noticed it each time I went up to the village.
I saw the groups at the post-office and at the depot turn to watch me
as I approached and as I went away. Captain Jedediah did not mention the
Lane again--at least for some time--but he always hailed me cordially
when we met and seemed anxious to be seen in my company. Eldredge, of
course, was effusive; so was Alvin Baker. And other people, citizens of
consequence in the town, who had heretofore merely bowed, now stopped
to speak with me on the street. Members of the sewing circle called
on Mother more frequently, and Matilda Dean, Captain Jed's wife, came
regularly once a week. Sometimes she saw Mother and sometimes she did
not, depending upon Dorinda's state of mind at the time.

Lute, always a sort of social barometer, noticed the change in the
weather.

"Everybody's talkin' about you, Ros," he declared. "They cal'late you're
a pretty smart feller. They don't just understand what you're up to, but
they think you're pretty smart."

"No?" I commented, ironically. "Lute, you astonish me. Why am I smart?"

"Well, they don't know exactly, but they cal'late you must be. Oh,
I hear things. Cap'n Jed said t'other night you'd make a pretty good
Selectman."

"_I_ would? A Selectman?"

"