t
those portions of treasures which might be allotted to the widow of a
storekeeper in a little country town were not likely to be very much,
and Mrs. Buskirk was anxious to know something definite about Mrs.
Cliff's present circumstances.

Burke felt a little embarrassed in regard to his answers. He knew that
Mrs. Cliff was very anxious not to appear as a millionnaire in the midst
of the friends and associations of her native town,--at least, that she
did not desire to do so until her real financial position had been
gradually understood and accepted. Nothing she would dislike so much as
to be regarded as the people in her social circle regarded the Buskirks
on the hill.

So Burke did not blaze out as he would have liked to do with a true and
faithful statement of Mrs. Cliff's great wealth,--far in excess, he was
very sure, of that of the fine lady with whom he was talking,--but he
said everything he could in a modest way, or what seemed so to him, in
regard to his friend's house and belongings.

"But it seems to me," said Mrs. Buskirk, "that it's a very strange
thing for any one to build a house, such as the one you describe, in
such a neighborhood, when there are so many desirable locations on the
outskirts of the town. The houses on the opposite side of the street are
very small, some of them even mean; if I am not mistaken there is a
little shop somewhere along there! I should consider that that sort of
thing would spoil any house, no matter how good it might be in itself!"

"Oh, that makes no difference whatever!" said Burke, with a wave of his
hand, and delighted to remember a proposition he had made to Mrs. Cliff
and which she had viewed with favor. "Mrs. Cliff will soon settle all
that! She's going to buy that whole block opposite to her and make a
park of it. She'll clear away all the houses and everything belonging to
them, and she'll plant trees, and lay out lawns and driveways, and have
a regular landscape gardener who'll superintend everything. And she's
going to have the water brought in pipes which will end in some great
rocks, which we'll have hauled from the woods, and from under these
rocks a brook will flow and meander through the park. And there'll be
flowers, and reeds, and rushes, and, very likely, a fountain with the
spare water.

"And that'll be a public park for the use of the whole town, and you can
see for yourself, madam, that it'll be a grand thing to look out from
Mrs. Cliff's window