"For the new High School—for the new High School!" her father said impatiently. For perhaps twenty years he had had occasional offers for the property, and had always scornfully refused them.
"Yet I think that's rather touching, Pa," Martie said.
"What's touching?" he asked suspiciously, after a moment in which he obviously tried to see any touching aspect in the affair.
"Why, to have the Monroe High School on the old Monroe site!" Martie said innocently. "Of course Mr. Tate and Cliff Frost know what it means to you, and yet I suppose they realize that the neighbourhood is changing, and that those shops have come in, this side of the bridge, and that, even if we lived here ten years more, we couldn't twenty. I agree with your decision, Pa, of course; but at the same time, I see that no other plot in Monroe would be so fitting!"
Malcolm stirred his tea, raised the cup, and drank off the hot fluid with great gusto. A faint frown darkened his brow.
"And, pray, where would the family live?" he asked presently.
"Where we ought to be now," Martie answered promptly. "In the Estates. I have been thinking lately, Pa, that nothing would give that development such prestige as to have you there! Put up as pretty a house as you choose, build a drive, and put in a handsome fence, but be Malcolm Monroe of the Monroe Estates!"
Always captured by phrases, she saw him tug at his moustache to hide a smile.
"Well!" he said presently. "Well! You astonish me. But yes, I see your point. I must candidly admit you have a point there. With another attractive home there—yes, there is something in that. But I had supposed that you girls had a sentiment for this old place," he added almost reproachfully.
"And so we have!" Martie answered quickly. "But it is one thing to sell this place in small lots, Pa, and have it chopped into shops and shanties, and another to have a three-hundred-thousand-dollar building go in here. The new High School on the old Monroe place; you'll admit there's a great difference?"