“Talk! They’ll talk anyway. They’ll talk after they are dead, some of them.... Well, then I shall come here to see you. I can do that, can’t I?” “I--I don’t think you had better.” “Don’t you want to see me?” She hesitated. “That hasn’t anything to do with it, really,” she declared. “You know it hasn’t, Bob. When you think of your grandfather and my uncle--” “I won’t,” he broke in, emphatically. “That is just what I won’t do. And you mustn’t either. You and I ought to think of ourselves. We agreed, that afternoon of the thunderstorm, that we hadn’t anything to do with a family row which is already years and years old. If you can’t come to see me I am coming to see you. And I shall.” “But uncle--” “I’m not coming to see him. And--why, he was nice enough to me this evening. I rather expected he might tell me to clear out, but he didn’t.” “No, he didn’t. But I am sure he doesn’t like it. How can he? Your grandfather--” “Oh, forget my grandfather! Esther Townsend, I shall come here again--yes, and soon. How about next Tuesday evening? Are you free then?” “Why--why, yes, I suppose I shall be. But, Bob--” “All right. I’ll be on hand. Good-night.” When she went up to her room the door of her uncle’s room was open and he called to her. “Didn’t stay very long, did he?” he observed. “No, Uncle Foster, not very.” “Coming again pretty soon, I suppose?” “Why--why, he said he might call Tuesday evening. Of course if you had rather he didn’t--” “I told you I hadn’t any objections, provided he doesn’t come too often. Asked you to drop in at the Tobias Eldridge place, I suppose?” “Ye-es. Yes, he said something about it; but I told him I couldn’t do that.” “Good girl.... Well, all right. Good-night.” She bent over his chair back and kissed him. “I think it is very sweet of you to let him come here at all,” she said. “I--I don’t see how you can--considering who he is.” “Who he is?... Humph!... Well, he is a friend of yours and I don’t want to stand between you and your friends. Besides--which is what you mean, of course--he is a Cook and when I deal with one of them I always feel safer if he is where--” He did not finish the sentence. “Where--? What were you going to say?” she asked. He was fearful that he had already said too much. “Nothing, nothing,” he said. “Good-night, dearie. I must finish my letter.” The letter was to Mrs. Jane Carter, in Boston, and he did finish it before he went to bed.