lcome. Then
there was that matter of the Lane here."

"Oh, that precious Lane! I wish I had never seen it."

"I have wished that a number of times in the past few months. But it is
here and the question overshadows everything else in the village just
now. It does not seem of much importance to you, perhaps; perhaps it is
not so very important to me; but--"

Again she interrupted me.

"I think it is important enough to make you forget--ordinary courtesy,"
she declared. "Yes, courtesy. DON'T look at me like that! You know what
I mean. As I told you before, I am not blind. Do credit me with some
intelligence. All the way during this cheerful walk of ours you scarcely
spoke a word. Did you suppose I did not know what was troubling you? I
saw how that Captain Dean looked at you. I saw those people staring from
the post-office door. I knew what you were afraid of their saying: that
you are altogether too companionable with Father and me; that you intend
selling the land to us, after all. That is what you thought they would
say and you were afraid--AFRAID of their gossip. Oh, it is humiliating!
And, for a time, I really thought you were different from the rest and
above such things."

I began to feel as if I were once more a small boy receiving a lecture
from the governess.

"I am not at all afraid of them, Miss Colton," I protested.

"You are. Why? Your conscience is clear, isn't it? You don't intend
selling out to my father?"

"Certainly not."

"Then why should you care what people like that may think? Oh, you weary
me! I admired you for your independence. There are few persons with the
courage to face my father as you have done and I admired you for it. I
would not have had you sell us the land for ANYTHING."

"You would not?" I gasped.

"Certainly not! I have been on your side all the time. If you had sold
I should have thought you, like all the rest, holding back merely for
a higher price. I respected you for the fight you were making. You must
have known it. If I had not why do you suppose I gave you that hint
about the Development Company?"

"Goodness knows!" I exclaimed, devoutly.

"And I was sure you could not be bribed by an offer of a position
in Father's office. It was not really a bribe--Father has, for some
unexplainable reason, taken a fancy to you--but I knew you would believe
it to be bribery. That is why I was so positive in telling him that you
would not accept. And now you--oh, when I think