"Their moving in next door need not trouble us, Jane. They are not
on our list of acquaintances."

"But I shall have to call upon Mrs. Haloran; and Emma upon her
grown-up daughter Mary."

"I do not see how that is to follow as a consequence of their
removal into our neighborhood."

"Politeness requires us to visit them as neighbors."

"Are they really our neighbors?" asked Mr. Leland, significantly.

"Certainly they are. How strange that you should ask the question!"

"What constitutes them such? Not mere proximity, certainly. Because
a person happens to live in a house near by, can that make him or
her really a neighbor, and entitled to the attention and
consideration due a neighbor?"

This remark caused Mrs. Leland to look thoughtful. "It ought not,"
she said, after sitting silent a little while, "but still, it does."

"I do not think so. A neighbor--that is, one to whom kind offices is
due--ought to come with higher claims than the mere fact of living
in a certain house located near by the dwelling in which we reside.
If mere location is to make any one a neighbor, we have no
protection against the annoyance and intrusions of persons we do not
like; nay, against evil-minded persons, who would delight more in