dering borrowing
some of this very--ahem--personage."

"Maybe I was, though I cal'late I should have took it out in
consideration; I never would have gone to him and asked. But now
the--what do you call it?--personage--come to me for somethin', the land
knows what."

"Perhaps HE wants to borrow."

"Humph! Perhaps he does. Well, then, he's fishin' in the wrong
puddle. Emily Howes, stop laughin' and makin' jokes and come into that
livin'-room same as I ask you to."

But this Emily firmly declined to do. "He's not my caller, Auntie," she
said. "He didn't even ask if I were in."

So Thankful went into the living-room alone to meet the personage. And
she closed all doors behind her. "If you won't help you shan't listen,"
she declared. "And I don't know's I'll tell you a word after he's gone."

The call was a long one. It ended in an odd way. Emily, sitting by the
dining-room window, heard the front door slam and, looking out, saw
Mr. Kendrick stalking down the path, a frown on his face and outraged
dignity in his bearing. A moment later Thankful burst into the
dining-room. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked excited and angry.

"What do you think that--that walkin' money-bag came here for?" she
demanded. "He came here to tell me I'd got to sell this place to him.
Yes, sell it to him, 'cause he wanted it. It didn't seem to make any
difference what I wanted. Well, it will make a difference, I tell you
that!"

When she had calmed sufficiently she told of the interview with her
neighbor. E. Holliday had lost no time in stating his position. The High
Cliff House, it appeared, was a source of annoyance to him and his. A
boarding-house, no matter how genteel or well-conducted a boarding-house
it may be, could not longer be tolerated in that situation. The boarders
irritated him by trespassing upon his premises, by knocking their tennis
balls into his garden beds, by bathing and skylarking on the beach in
plain sight from his verandas. And the house and barn interfered with
his view. He wished to be perfectly reasonable in the matter; Mrs.
Barnes, of course, understood that. He was willing to pay for the
privilege of having his own way. But, boiled down and shorn of
politeness and subterfuge, his proposition was that Thankful should sell
her property to him, after which he would either tear down the buildings
on that property, or move them to a less objectionable site.

"But, Auntie," cried Emily, "of course you told h