sell to Mr.
Colton. And I think I wouldn't sell to the town either."

"Why not?"

"Well, because we don't have to sell, and selling to either party would
make ill-feeling. I should--of course I'm only a woman; you are a man
and know much more about such things than I--but why not let matters
stay just as they are? The townspeople can use the Lane, just as they
have always done, and, as I told you before, every one has been so kind
to us that I like to feel we are doing a little in return. Let them use
the Lane, without cost. Why not?"

"What do you think the Coltons would say to that?"

"Perhaps they don't understand the real situation. The next time you see
Mr. Colton you could explain more fully; tell him what the Lane means to
the town, and so on. I'm sure he would understand, if you told him that.
And then, if the sight of the wagons was too annoying, he could put up
some kind of a screen, or plant a row of fir trees by the fence. Don't
you think so?"

I imagined the great man's reply to such a suggestion. However, I
did not express my thoughts. I told Mother not to worry, I was sure
everything would be all right, and, as Dorinda called me to supper, I
went into the dining-room.

Lute was waiting for me at the table, and Dorinda, after taking the
tray into Mother's room, joined us. Lute was so full of excitement and
curiosity that he almost forgot to eat, a miracle of itself and made
greater by the fact that he did not ask a single question until his wife
asked one first. Then he asked three in succession. Dorinda, who was
quite as curious as he but would not have shown it for the world,
stopped him at the beginning of the fourth.

"There! there!" she said, sharply, "this is supposed to be a meal, not a
parrot shop, and we're humans, not a passel of birds on a telegraph wire
all hollerin' at once. Drink your tea and stop your cawin', Lute Rogers.
Ros'll tell us when he gets ready. What DID Mr. Colton want of you,
Roscoe?"

I told them as much of the interview at the Coltons' as I thought
necessary they should know. Lute kept remarkably quiet, for him, until
I named the figure offered by the millionaire. Then he could hold in no
longer.

"Five hundred!" he repeated "Five hundred DOLLARS for the Shore Lane!
Five--"

"He raised it to six hundred and fifty before I left," I said.

"SIX hundred! Six hundred--and FIFTY! For the Shore Lane! Six hun--"

"Sshh! shh!" cut in Dorinda. "You sound like Sim Eldred