“Father needs me,” she said, “and I shall not leave him while he lives.”
They spoke of Albert's work and plans most of all. He began to ask for advice concerning the former. When those stories were written, what then? She hoped he would try the novel he had hinted at.
“I'm sure you can do it,” she said. “And you mustn't give up the poems altogether. It was the poetry, you know, which was the beginning.”
“YOU were the beginning,” he said impulsively. “Perhaps I should never have written at all if you hadn't urged me, shamed me out of my laziness.”
“I was a presuming young person, I'm afraid,” she said. “I wonder you didn't tell me to mind my own business. I believe you did, but I wouldn't mind.”
June brought the summer weather and the summer boarders to South Harniss. One of the news sensations which came at the same time was that the new Fosdick cottage had been sold. The people who had occupied it the previous season had bought it. Mrs. Fosdick, so rumor said, was not strong and her doctors had decided that the sea air did not agree with her.
“Crimustee!” exclaimed Issachar, as he imparted the news to Mr. Keeler, “if that ain't the worst. Spend your money, and a pile of money, too, buyin' ground, layin' of it out to build a house on to live in, then buildin' that house and then, by crimus, sellin' it to somebody else for THEM to live in. That beats any foolishness ever come MY way.”
“And there's some consider'ble come your way at that, ain't they, Is?” observed Laban, busy with his bookkeeping.
Issachar nodded. “You're right there has,” he said complacently. “I . . . What do you mean by that? Tryin' to be funny again, ain't you?”
Albert heard the news with a distinct feeling of relief. While the feeling on his part toward Madeline was of the kindliest, and Madeline's was, he felt sure, the same toward him, nevertheless to meet her day after day, as people must meet in a village no bigger than South Harniss, would be awkward for both. And to meet Mrs. Fosdick might be more awkward still. He smiled as he surmised that the realization by the lady of that very awkwardness was probably responsible for the discovery that sea air was not beneficial.