surprise, Mr. David Walker, the real-estate broker, approaching across
the lawn--surprise because it was late in the year for holidays, and
Mr. Walker invariably went to town by the half-past eight train. Yet a
visit from one of their neighbors was always agreeable to them, and
the one in question lived not more than a quarter of a mile away and
sometimes did drop in at afternoon tea-time. Certain women might have
attempted an apology for their appearance, but Miss Rebecca seemed
rather to glory in the shears which dangled down from her
apron-strings as she rose to greet her visitor; they told so
unmistakably that she had been enjoying herself trimming vines. Miss
Carry--who was still kittenish in spite of her forty years--as she
gave one of her hands to Mr. Walker held out with the other a basket
of seckel pears she had been gathering, and said:

"Have one--do."

Mr. Walker complied, and, having completed the preliminary
commonplaces, said, as he hurled the core with an energetic sweep of
his arm into the ocean at the base of the little bluff on which the
cottage stood:

"There is no place on the shore which quite compares with this."

"We agree with you," said Miss Rebecca with dogged urbanity. "Is any
one of a different opinion?"

"On the contrary, I have come to make you an offer for it. It isn't
usual for real-estate men to crack up the properties they wish to
purchase, but I am not afraid of doing so in this case." He spoke
buoyantly, as though he felt confident that he was in a position to