It was rather late in the afternoon, the warmest time of day. Beyond the neatly painted fences and the trimmed lawns the porches of some of the houses were brightened by the white dresses of ladies. In some of the yards the ladies, and now and then a young fellow, were playing croquet, the balls clicking together with a pleasant sound of well-seasoned wood. Lem put his face to the fences and stared in at these games while Harvey puffed on ahead. At Sue Redding's gate Harvey paused to wipe his face. The place was large, one hundred and twenty feet of white picket fence along the walk, with a terrace of six feet or more rising steeply inside the fence, so that only at the gate and beyond it could a man see those who sat on the wide porch. Harvey looked at the porch anxiously, but even at that distance--the big, white house was set far back--he could see that Sue was not on the porch, and he was relieved. “Come here, Lem, dod--I mean, come here, Lem,” he ordered. “Lemme look at your face. Don't seem to do no good to wash your face at all. Well--” He opened the gate and climbed the steps to the walk that led between two rows of pine trees to the porch. Two young women, white-clad, were sitting on the step of the porch. One was one of Miss Redding's boarders; the other from a house across the way. “Miss Redding?” said the boarder, whom Harvey did not remember to have seen before. “She's in the kitchen, I think. I'll call her--” “Nemmine,” said Harvey. “Me an' Lem'll go right through. I'm her brother,” he added in explanation. He opened the screen door and passed into the cool, deep hall. Lem followed him. Sue Redding was making cookies, cutting them out of the flattened dough with a fluted dough-cutter. She was a large woman, almost as heavy as Harvey himself, but remarkably quick in every movement for one so heavy. She turned when Harvey entered, but she did not seem particularly pleased to see him. “Hello, Lem,” she said, greeting the boy first. “What you want now, Harvey? I don't suppose you've come to pay that note, it ain't likely.” Harvey seated himself ponderously on one of the kitchen chairs. “I come to tell you, Sue, that I've given up business,” he said gently, as one not wishing to arouse anger. The effect was magical. Miss Redding turned on him, her face flushing, her eyes gleaming. “You come here and dare tell me that, in my own kitchen?” she burst forth. “You don't dare give up business! What did you tell me when I let you go out of the grocery business and into the junk business, Harvey Redding? Did n't you say, 'If you let that note stand, I 'll keep in business until I get it paid up if it takes all my born days!' All right! I suppose you're here to pay up that note, then?” “Well, now, Susan--” “A nice right you have to come and say you are going to quit business! Of all the good-for-nothing--”