Last
night it seemed lonesome and pokey and horrid, but now it is almost
inviting. Think what it must be in the spring and summer. Think of
opening those upper windows on a summer morning and looking out and away
for miles and miles. It would be splendid!"
"Um--yes. But spring and summer don't last all the time. There's
December and January and February to think of. Even March ain't all joy;
we've got last night to prove it by. However, it doesn't look quite so
desperate as I thought it might; I'll give in to that. Last night I
was about ready to sell it for the price of a return ticket to South
Middleboro. Now I guess likely I ought to get a few tradin' stamps along
with the ticket. Humph! This sartin isn't ALL Poverty Lane, is it? THAT
place wa'n't built with tradin' stamps. Who lives there?"
She was pointing to the estate adjoining the Barnes house and fronting
the sea further on. "Estate" is a much abused term and is sometimes
applied to rather insignificant holdings, but this one deserved the
name. Great stretches of lawns and shrubbery, ornamental windmill,
greenhouses, stables, drives and a towered and turreted mansion
dominating all.
"I seem to have aristocratic neighbors, anyhow," observed Mrs. Barnes.
"Whose tintype belongs in THAT gilt frame?"
Captain Obed chuckled at the question.
"Why, nobody's just now," he said. "There was one up to last fall,
though I shouldn't have called him a tintype. More of a panorama, if
you asked me--or him, either.
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