"Yes, he did tell them, as he always has—that nothing would persuade him to part with it!"
"WELL!" said Lydia, breathing again.
"But he's been thinking it over, Lyd, and he's really seriously reconsidering it. You see the instant Pa dies, the Bank will foreclose, for neither you nor I have a cent, and Len is tied up for years with the Estates—"
Martie began to speak eagerly and quickly. But her voice died before Lydia's look.
"Martie! How can you! Speaking of Pa's death in that callous, cold-blooded way; when poor Ma hasn't been buried three years—and now dear old Grandma Sark—"
Lydia fumbled for a handkerchief, and began to sob. After a few moments, in which Martie only offered a few timid pats on her shoulder for consolation, she suddenly dried her eyes, and began with bitter clearness:
"I know who has done this, Mart! I don't say much, but I see. I see now where all your petting of Pa, and humouring Pa, was leading! Oh, how can you—how can you—how CAN you! My home, the dear old Monroe place, that three generations of us—but I won't stand it! I feel as if Ma would rise up and rebuke me! No, you and Pa can decide what you please, but no power on earth will make me—and where would we live, might I ask? We couldn't go to the Poor House, I suppose?"
"Pa'd build a lovely house, smaller and more modern, on the Estates," Martie explained. Lydia assumed a look of high scorn.
"Oh, indeed!" she said, gulping and wiping her eyes again. "Indeed! Is that so? Move out there so that Len would prosper, so that there would be one more house out on that DESOLATE flat field—very well, you and Pa can go! But I stay here!"
And trembling all over, as she always did tremble when forced into anything but a mildly neutral position, Lydia went upstairs. The dinner hour was embittered by a painful discussion and by more tears.