“You won't?” she repeated. “You won't—”
“I won't lend you no more money. Why should I?”
“You shouldn't, I suppose, if you don't want to. But, the way I look at it, it would be a perfectly safe loan for you. My prospects are fine; everybody says so.”
“Everybody says a whole lot of things. If I'd put up money on what everybody said I'd be puttin' up at the poorhouse, myself. But I ain't puttin' up there and I ain't puttin' up the money neither.”
“All right; keep it then—keep it and sleep on it, if you want to. I can get along without it, I guess; or, if I can't, I can borrow it of somebody else.”
“Humph! You're pretty sassy, seems to me, for anybody that's askin' favors.”
“I'm not askin' favors. I told you that when I first come to you. What I asked was just business and nothin' else.”
“Is that so? As I understand it you're askin' to have a mortgage renewed. That may be business, or it may be a favor, 'cordin' to how you look at it.”
Thankful fought down her temper. The renewal of the mortgage was a vital matter to her. If it was not renewed what should she do? What could she do? All she had in the world and all her hopes for the future centered about her property in East Wellmouth. If that were taken from her—
“Well,” she admitted, “perhaps it is a favor, then.”