Then Eliphalet Means spoke dryly, still with that utter patience of preparation and expectation: "If Doctor Prescott retains this mortgage he intends to foreclose." Ann looked at him, and then at Doctor Prescott. She gasped, "Foreclose!" Doctor Prescott nodded. "You mean to foreclose? You mean to take this place away from us?" Ann cried, shrilly. "You with all you've got, and we a widow and orphans! And you callin' yourself a good man an' a pillar of the sanctuary!" Doctor Prescott's face hardened. "Your husband owed me for a half-year's interest," he began, calmly. "My husband didn't owe you any interest money. He paid you in work and wood." "That was for medical attendance," proceeded the doctor, imperturbably. "He owed me half a year's interest. I considered it best for your interests, as well as mine, to foreclose, and should have done so had not Squire Merritt taken the matter out of my hands. I should advise him to a like measure, but he is his own best judge." "Squire Merritt will not foreclose," said Eliphalet Means; "and he will be easy about the payments." "Well," said Ann, with a strange, stony look, "I guess I understand. I'm satisfied." Doctor Prescott gathered up his medicine-chest, bade the others a gruff, ceremonious good-morning, and went out. His sulky had been drawn up before the gate for some time, and Jake Noyes had been lounging about the yard. The lawyer and the Squire lingered, as they had yet the business regarding the sale of the woodland to arrange. Curiously enough, Ann was docile as one could wish about that. Whether her previous struggle had exhausted her or whether she began to feel some confidence in her advisers, they could not tell. She made no difficulty, but after all was adjusted she looked at the lawyer with a shrewd, sharp gleam in her eyes. "Doctor Prescott can't get his claws on it now, anyhow," she said; "and he always wanted it, 'cause it joined his." The Squire and the lawyer looked at each other. The Squire with humorous amazement, the lawyer with a wink and glance of wise reminder, as much as to say: "You know what I have always said about women. Here is a woman." Jerome was digging out in his garden-patch, and Elmira, in her blue sunbonnet, was standing, full of scared questioning, before him, when the Squire came lounging up the slope and reported as before said, to the convincing of the boy in innocent credulity. When he had finished, he laid hold on Elmira's little cotton sleeve and pulled her up to her brother, and stood before them with a kindly hand on a shoulder of each, smiling down at them with infinite good-humor and protection. "Don't you worry now, children," he said. "Be good and mind your mother, and you'll get along all right. We'll manage about the interest money, and there'll be meal in the barrel and a roof over your heads as long as you want it, according to the Scriptures, I'll guarantee."