“Hold on! As for your coming here being like going to the poorhouse--well, I don’t know that I’d call this place a poorhouse, exactly. As for work, I told you I could find plenty of work for you to do, if you wanted it.” “Yes, but you told me you’d have to _find_ it. You didn’t say you needed me, because you know perfectly well you don’t. Foster, I used to know you pretty well and you haven’t changed any more than I have--except that you’ve grown rich, and mercy knows I am as poor as I ever was. When you used to come to see me and take me to ride and to parties and all the rest of it--a hundred years ago, or whenever it was--you always set out to have your own way. I must do the things you wanted done and not do the things you didn’t want.” He was amused. “Maybe so,” he admitted, with a chuckle, “but I remember you generally did what you wanted to, in the end. And you’ve done it ever since, so far as I can make out.” “Well, haven’t you?” “Maybe. I’ve usually tried to have my own way--yes. But you bet I made certain that it was a good way before I started. I’ve done fairly well by having it, too, I guess.” “I guess you have. And I have had my way and haven’t done much; that is what you’re thinkin’ and I may as well say it for you.” “Now, now, Reliance, I wasn’t thinking any such thing. You’re wrong when you say I didn’t want you to come here along with Esther. I did.” “Yes, you did in a way. That is, you were lonesome, and that up-attic conscience I reminded you of got to botherin’ you. You wanted somebody to keep you company and, after all, Esther was one of your own relations and you knew she was a nice girl. And Arabella always--” She paused, because of the expression upon his face. “Never mind that,” she added, hurriedly, and in a tone less sharp. “I know what Arabella was to you and I have been awfully sorry for you this past week, Foster; I truly have.... You wanted Esther and made up your mind to get her here with you; but when you got to thinkin’ of that ‘good way’ you mentioned--the surest way to have your own way about her--you thought of me. You realized a little of how much she and I were to each other and you were afraid you couldn’t coax her up to this house unless I came, too. And you couldn’t get me unless Millard was thrown into the bag. So you asked us all, hide and tail. That is the truth of it and you know it. What is the use of makin’ believe?” He rubbed his beard and slowly shook his head. “You are smart, Reliance,” he admitted, grudgingly. “Part of what you say is true. It isn’t all true, though. It would have been rather fun to have you around. The fights we would be bound to have would have given me something new to think about, and the way I feel just now I need it. And I can’t see any reason why you should fly up like a setting hen because I made the offer. There’s no charity about it. It is what I wanted and I can afford to have what I want.”