It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant
was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do
think of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It's
very good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes."

It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing.
When there was one, he always kept it to the last.

"Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the
around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live
in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now.
Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming.
I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over."

He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a
word. We were too much surprised.

Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted.

I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a
woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her
so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She
asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep
her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it
to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a
grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived.

"We could keep a cow!" said mother.

"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded.

"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His
land begins this side."

"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we
have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly.

"I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in
continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished
hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would
never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our
limitations.

"Does that look--"

"Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do never
do."

Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, of
something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "might
be, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that.

"I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and I
don't mean to tease you," said Barb