“There was another party looking at the place a spell back,” he said, rubbing his dry old hands.  “I dunno’s I exac’ly give him an option on it; but I was sort of looking for him to turn up ’most any day.  Course I’d have to give him the first chance, if it comes to a—­”

“What is an option?” asked Lydia.

“An option is a—­now, let me see if I can make a legal term plain to the female mind:  An option, my dear young lady, is—­”

The minister crossed the floor to where the girl was standing, a slight, delicate figure in her black dress, her small face under the shadowy brim of her wide had looking unnaturally pale in the greenish light from without.

“An option,” he interposed hurriedly, “must be bought with money; should you change your mind later you lose whatever you have paid.  Let me advise you—­”

Deacon Whittle cleared his throat with an angry, rasping sound.

“Me an’ this young lady came here this morning for the purpose of transacting a little business, mutually advantageous,” he snarled.  “If it was anybody but the dominie, I should say he was butting in without cause.”

“Oh, don’t, please!” begged the girl.  “Mr. Elliot meant it kindly, I’m sure.  I—­I want an option, if you please.  You’ll let me have it, won’t you?  I want it—­now.”

Deacon Whittle blinked and drew back a pace or two, as if her eagerness actually frightened him.

“I—­I guess I can accommodate ye,” he stuttered; “but—­there’ll be some preliminaries—­I wa’n’t exactly prepared—­ There’s the price of the property and the terms—­ S’pose likely you’ll want a mortgage—­eh?”

He rubbed his bristly chin dubiously.

“I want to buy the house,” Lydia said.  “I want to be sure—­”

“Have you seen the rooms upstairs?” asked the minister, turning his back upon his senior deacon.

She shook her head.

“Well, then, why not—­”

Wesley Elliot took a step or two toward the winding stair, dimly seen through the gloom of the hall.

“Hold on, dominie, them stairs ain’t safe!” warned the Deacon.  “They’ll mebbe want a little shoring up, before—­ Say, I wish—­”

“I don’t care to go up now, really,” protested the girl.  “It—­it’s the location I like and—­”

She glanced about the desolate place with a shiver.  The air of the long-closed rooms was chilly, despite the warmth of the June day outside.

“I’ll tell you what,” said the deacon briskly.  “You come right along down to the village with me, Miss Orr.  It’s kind of close in here; the house is built so tight, there can’t no air git in.  I tell you, them walls—­”

He smote the one nearest him with a jocular palm.  There followed the hollow sound of dropping plaster from behind the lath.

“Guess we’d better fix things up between us, so you won’t be noways disappointed in case that other party—­” he added, with a crafty glance at the minister.  “You see, he might turn up ’most any day.”