“There! there!” she said, sharply, “this is supposed to be a meal, not a parrot shop, and we're humans, not a passel of birds on a telegraph wire all hollerin' at once. Drink your tea and stop your cawin', Lute Rogers. Ros'll tell us when he gets ready. What DID Mr. Colton want of you, Roscoe?” I told them as much of the interview at the Coltons' as I thought necessary they should know. Lute kept remarkably quiet, for him, until I named the figure offered by the millionaire. Then he could hold in no longer. “Five hundred!” he repeated “Five hundred DOLLARS for the Shore Lane! Five--” “He raised it to six hundred and fifty before I left,” I said. “SIX hundred! Six hundred--and FIFTY! For the Shore Lane! Six hun--” “Sshh! shh!” cut in Dorinda. “You sound like Sim Eldredge sellin' somethin' at auction. DO be quiet! And you told him, Roscoe--?” “I told you what I told him,” I said. “Um-hm. I ain't forgot it. Be quiet, Lute. Well, Roscoe, I cal'late you know your own affairs best, but, judgin' from some hints Matildy Dean hove out when she was here this afternoon, I don't believe you've heard the last from that Shore Lane.” “Matilda Dean!” I repeated. “Why, Mother said Matilda wasn't here to-day.” “Um-hm. Well, she was here, though Comfort didn't know it. I took pains she shouldn't. Matildy come about three o'clock, in the buggy, along with Nellie. Nellie was doin' the drivin', of course, and her mother was tellin' her how, as usual. I don't wonder that girl is such a meek, soft-spoken kind of thing. Between her pa's bullyin' and her ma's tongue, it's a wonder she's got any spirit left. It would be a mercy if George Taylor should marry her and take her out of that house. Matildy had a new book on Spiritu'lism and she was figgerin' to read some of it out loud to Comfort, but I headed her off. I know _I_ wouldn't want to be all stirred up about 'tests' and 'materializations' and such, and so I told her Comfort was asleep.” “She wasn't asleep, neither,” declared Lute. “What did you tell such a whopper as that for? You're always sailin' into me if I stretch a yarn the least mite. Why, last April Fool Day you give me Hail Columby for jokin' you about a mouse under the kitchen table. Called me all kinds of names, you did--after you got down off the table.” His wife regarded him scornfully. “It's pretty hard to remember which IS that partic'lar day with you around,” she said. “I'd told Comfort she'd ought to take a nap and if she wan't takin' it 'twan't my fault. I wan't goin' to have her seein' her granddad's ghost in every corner. But, anyhow, Matildy made a little call on me, and, amongst the million other things she said, was somethin' about Cap'n Jed hearin' that Mr. Colton was cal'latin' to shut off that Lane. Matildy hinted that her husband and the Selectmen might have a little to say afore 'twas closed. If that's so I guess you may hear from him as well as the Colton man, Roscoe.”