“I don’t know’s I can, but—­but it’ll be all right, anyhow.  He’ll renew it, if I ask him to, I presume likely.”

“Of course he will.  He will have to.  Auntie, you must go and see him at once.  If you don’t I shall.”

If there was one point on which Thankful was determined, it was that Emily should not meet Solomon Cobb.  The money-lender had visited the High Cliff premises but once during the summer and then Miss Howes was providentially absent.

“No, no!” declared Mrs. Barnes, hastily.  “You shan’t do any such thing.  The idea!  I guess I can ‘tend to borrowin’ money from my own relation without draggin’ other folks into it.  I’ll drive over and see him pretty soon.”

“You must go at once.  I shan’t permit you to wait another week.  It is almost time for me to go back to my schoolwork, and I shan’t go until I am certain that mortgage is to be renewed and that your financial affairs are all right.  Do go, Auntie, please.  Arrange to have the mortgage renewed and try to get another loan.  Promise me you will go tomorrow.”

So Thankful was obliged to promise, and the following morning she drove George Washington over the long road, now wet and soggy from the rain, to Trumet.

Mr. Solomon Cobb’s “henhouse” looked quite as dingy and dirty as when she visited it before.  Solomon himself was just as shabby and he pulled at his whiskers with his accustomed energy.

“Hello!” he said, peering over his spectacles.  “What do you want? . . .  Oh, it’s you, is it?  What’s the matter?”

Thankful came forward.  “Matter?” she repeated.  “What in the world—­what made you think anything was the matter?”

Solomon stared at her fixedly.

“What did you come here for?” he asked.

“To see you.  That’s worth comin’ for, isn’t it?”

The joke was wasted, as all jokes seemed to be upon Mr. Cobb.  He did not smile.

“What made you come to see me?” he asked, still staring.

“What made me?”

“Yes.  What made you?  Have you found—­has anybody told you—­er—­anything?”

“Anybody told me!  My soul and body!  That’s what you said when I was here before.  Do you say it to everybody?  What on earth do you mean by it?  Who would tell me anything?  And what would they tell?”

Solomon pulled his whiskers.  “Nothin’, I guess,” he said, after a moment.  “Only there’s so much fool talk runnin’ loose I didn’t know but you might have heard I was—­was dead, or somethin’.  I ain’t.”

“I can see that, I hope.  And if you was I shouldn’t be traipsin’ ten miles just to look at your remains.  Time enough for that at the funeral.  Dead!  The idea!”

“Um—­well, all right; I ain’t dead, yet.  Set down, won’t ye?”

Thankful sat down.  Mr. Cobb swung about in his own chair, so that his face was in the shadow.

“Hear you’ve been doin’ pretty well with that boardin’-house of yours,” he observed.  “Hear it’s been full up all summer.”