"Oh, Austin--could _I_ buy it? I've been _dying_ for it ever since I first saw it! It could be made perfectly charming, and it's plenty big enough for me! I've sold my Fifth Avenue house, and I'm going to sell the one on Long Island too--great, hideous, barnlike places! Your mother won't want me forever, and I want a little place of my very own, and _I love_ Hamstead--and the river--and the valley--I didn't dare suggest this--you all, except Thomas, seemed so averse to disposing of any of the property, but--' "If we sell the meadow to Weston, I am sure you can have the cottage and as much land as you want around it; but the trouble is--" "You need a great deal more money; of course, I know that. Have you any insurance?" "Very little." For some moments she sat turning things over in her mind, and was quiet for so long that Austin began to fear that she was more badly hurt than she had admitted, and found it an effort to talk. "Is anything the matter?" he asked at last, anxiously. "Are you in pain?" "No--only thinking. Austin--if you cannot secure a loan at some local bank, would you be very averse to borrowing the money from me--whatever the sum is that you need? I am investing all the time, and I will ask the regular rates of interest. Are you offended with me for making such a suggestion?" "I am not. I was too much moved to answer for a minute, that is all. It is beyond my comprehension how you could bring yourself to do it, after overhearing what you heard me say the other evening." "Then you'll accept?" "If father and Thomas think best, I will; and thank you, too, for not calling it a gift." "Are you likely to be offended if I go on, and suggest something further?" "No; but I am likely to be so overwhelmed that I shall not be of much practical use to you." "Well, then, I'd like you to take a thousand dollars more than you need for building, and spend it in travelling." "In travelling!" "Yes; Thomas is a born farmer, and the four years that he is going to have at the State Agricultural College are going to be exactly what he wants and needs. He isn't sensitive enough so that he'll mind being a little older than most of the fellows in his class. But, of course, for you, anything like that is entirely out of the question. How old are you, anyway?" "Twenty-seven."