nduce you to give yours up. I'll build a separate one
for you right beside mine, any time you say the word, and you shall
pursue your avocation in perfect freedom. All I object to is your making
the thing your vocation. I know of a better one for you."

She shook her head. "We went over all this ground--over and over
it--before I came away. Why do you come out here and begin it all over
again? I don't want to talk about it."

"I came because I had to see for myself what sort of a place you were
in. I had a notion that it wasn't good enough. It isn't. You can't be
comfortable in it, through the most of the year. Neither can Madam
Chase."

"We can be perfectly comfortable." She spoke quickly and decidedly. "You
know absolutely that I wouldn't sacrifice what is dearest to me in the
world for the sake of having my own way. The little house is primitive,
but Granny can be made as snug in it as in any stone mansion."

"The thing may tumble down about your ears in the first high wind."

"It will not. Dr. Burns went over it thoroughly, and says it is much more
substantial than it looks."

"Dr. Burns! May I ask who the gentleman is?"

"My neighbour across the street. He is devoted to Granny, and had as many
fears as you could have before he tested the house."

"Is he married?"

"Certainly." It was impossible to help laughing a little at his tone,
which was that of a jealous boy.

"Thank heaven for that! I'm suspicious of men who are devoted to your
grandmother, charming old lady though she is. But, in spite of Dr.
Burns's invaluable opinion, I must beg to differ with him. You can't be
comfortable in that chicken-coop through the winter."

"I don't know," Charlotte said slowly, sitting up very straight in the
twilight, and looking steadily in front of her, "that you have any right
to care whether we are comfortable or not."

"No right to care? Not the right of an old friend? Charlotte, you
wouldn't deny me that? Why, child, I saw you grow up. I was your father's
trusted friend, in spite of being much younger than he. And I'm not so
much older than you, after all--only fifteen years. You might at least
let me play at being elder brother to you."

"I did let you play that for a long, long time. It was only when--"

She paused. He took her up.

"Only when I began to intimate that the relation wasn't fully satisfying
that you began to give me the cold shoulder. You haven't even written to
me since you've been here.