"Thank thee, but I hope not to run further into thy debt, Archibald, save in case of direst need. And do not think but that I fully understand and appreciate all the kindness which has permitted us to stay at Fairacres so long. In some things, as thee will one day discover, thee has mistaken and misjudged us; but in one thing I have understood and sympathized with thee, always, and with all my heart: the passionate love which a Kaye must feel for his home and all this."
There was pathos and dignity in the quiet gesture which Salome Kaye swept over the apartment that had been her own for all her life; but there was also courage and determination in her bearing as she walked out of it, leaning lightly upon Amy's shoulder, and with Hallam limping beside her. Somehow, too, Archibald Wingate did not feel quite as jubilant and successful as he had anticipated, and he welcomed, as an agreeable diversion, the approach of a buggy, conveying his friend, Lawyer Smith, to witness the lease and to give any needful advice in the matter.
"Hello, Smith. Quite a rainy day, isn't it? I've been studying that row of old pines and spruces. How do you think the avenue'd look if I was to have 'em trimmed up, say about as high as your head, from the ground? Give a better view of the old Ardsley Valley, wouldn't it?"
The lawyer stepped down from his vehicle, backward and cautiously, then turned, screwed up his eyes, and replied deliberately:—
"Well, it might; and then again it mightn't. It's taken a good many years for those branches to grow, and once they're off they can't be put back again. If I was in your place, I'd rather let things slide easy for a spell; then—go as you please. Have you come to a settlement? Will they quit without lawing?"
"Yes, they'll quit at once. Say, woman! You, Cleena, bring me a hatchet, will you? I'll just lop off a little limb on one side, and see the effect. Hurry up!"
"Faith, I'll fetch it!" responded Cleena, loudly. But when she did so, she advanced with such a menacing gesture upon the new proprietor of her old home that he shrank back, doubtful of her intent. "Ain't it enough to break hearts, without breakin' the helpless trees your own forebears planted long by?—Aha, my fine gineral, so you're bad penny back again? Well, then, you're the handle o' time. By the way you tacked up them boughs, you'll be clever at packin'. Come by. I'll give ye a job."
Thus, partly to Lawyer Smith's caution and partly to Cleena's indignation, the fine evergreens of Fairacres owed the fact that they, for the time being, escaped mutilation.