“On my place!” Uncle William was roused. “No, sir, I don’t give mortgages to nobody.” “Then I don’t see as I can let you hev it,” said Andy. “It’s fair to ask for a mortgage. What if anything should happen to ye--down there in New York? Where’d _I_ be?” He looked at him reproachfully. “You _would_ miss me, Andy, and I know it. I’m goin’ to be careful. I shan’t take no more resks ’n I have to.” “Nor me, neither,” said Andy. “That’s right, Andy, you be careful, too, while I’m gone. Why, ’t wouldn’t ever be like home--to come back and not find you here.” Andy’s eyes widened. “What you talkin’ ’bout?” he said. Uncle William’s gaze was on him affectionately. He looked a little puzzled. “I dunno jest what I _did_ start to say,” he said apologetically. “I was thinkin’ what a store I set by you, Andy.” Andy’s face softened a trifle. “Now, look here, Willum, a mortgage is fair. It wouldn’t hurt you none, nor your place--” William shook his head. “I couldn’t do it, Andy. I wouldn’t reely trust you with a mortgage. You might get scared and foreclose some day if I couldn’t pay the interest, and you’d be ashamed enough--doin’ a thing like that.” The next day Andy drew the hundred from the bank and turned it over to William without even a note to guard his sacred rights. Andy had tried in the night watches to formulate a note. He had selected the best, from a row of crafty suggestions, about four o’clock. But later, as he and William went up the road, the note dropped by the way. Uncle William stowed the money in his pocket with a comfortable smile. “You’ve done the right thing, Andy, and I shall pay you back when I can. You’ll get your interest reg’lar--six per cent.” Andy’s face held a kind of subdued gloom. He mourned not as those without hope, but with a chastened expectancy. To lend William money had almost the fine flavor of gambling. He saw him off the following morning, with a sense of widened interests. He carried, moreover, an additional burden. “Remember, Andy,” Uncle William called to him as the boat moved away, “she don’t like potato, and she won’t touch a mite of fish--‘ceptin’ herrin’.” Juno had been intrusted to him. Andy grinned a sickly good-by. “Good-by, Willum; I’ll do as well as I can by her.” He turned away with a sudden sense of loss. The island seemed very empty. Juno did not like Andy, and he was needed at home. The mental effort of thinking up a menu three times a day that did not include fish and potato for a magnificent creature like Juno weighed heavily on him. He had proposed bringing her down to the house, thinking to shift the burden on to Harriet, but Uncle William had refused sternly. “She wouldn’t be comfortable, Andy. The’ ’s a good deal of soap and water down to your house and she wouldn’t like it. You can run up two or three times, easy, to see she’s all right. Mebbe you’ll get fond of her.”