"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over."
He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a word. We were too much surprised.
Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted.
I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived.
"We could keep a cow!" said mother.
"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded.
"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His land begins this side."
"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly.
"I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our limitations.
"Does that look—"