“Mrs. Durgin,” said Westover, “you gratify me more than I can tell you.  I wish—­I wish I could let you have the picture.  I—­I don’t know what to say—­”

“Why don’t you let me have it, then?  If we ever had to go away from here—­if anything happened to us—­it’s the one thing I should want to keep and take with me.  There!  That’s the way I feel about it.  I can’t explain; but I do wish you’d let me have it.”

Some emotion which did not utter itself in the desire she expressed made her voice shake in the words.  She held out the bank-notes to him, and they rustled with the tremor of her hand.

“Mrs. Durgin, I suppose I shall have to be frank with you, and you mustn’t feel hurt.  I have to live by my work, and I have to get as much as I can for it—­”

“That’s what I say.  I don’t want to beat you down on it.  I’ll give you whatever you think is right.  It’s my money, and my husband feels just as I do about it,” she urged.

“You don’t quite understand,” he said, gently.  “I expect to have an exhibition of my pictures in Boston this fall, and I hope to get two or three hundred dollars for Lion’s Head.”

“I’ve been a proper fool,” cried the woman, and she drew in a long breath.

“Oh, don’t mind,” he begged; “it’s all right.  I’ve never had any offer for a picture that I’d rather take than yours.  I know the thing can’t be altogether bad after what you’ve said.  And I’ll tell you what!  I’ll have it photographed when I get to Boston, and I’ll send you a photograph of it.”

“How much will that be?” Mrs. Durgin asked, as if taught caution by her offer for the painting.

“Nothing.  And if you’ll accept it and hang it up here somewhere I shall be very glad.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Durgin, and the meekness, the wounded pride, he fancied in her, touched him.

He did not know at first how to break the silence which she let follow upon her words.  At last he said: 

“You spoke, just now, about taking it with you.  Of course, you don’t think of leaving Lion’s Head?”

She did not answer for so long a time that he thought she had not perhaps heard him or heeded what he said; but she answered, finally:  “We did think of it.  The day you come we had about made up our minds to leave.”

“Oh!”

“But I’ve been thinkin’ of something since you’ve been here that I don’t know but you’ll say is about as wild as wantin’ to buy a three-hundred-dollar picture with a week’s board.”  She gave a short, self-scornful laugh; but it was a laugh, and it relieved the tension.

“It may not be worth any more,” he said, glad of the relief.

“Oh, I guess it is,” she rejoined, and then she waited for him to prompt her.

“Well?”

“Well, it’s this; and I wanted to ask you, anyway.  You think there’d be any chance of my gettin’ summer folks to come here and board if I was to put an advertisement in a Boston paper?  I know it’s a lonesome place, and there ain’t what you may call attractions.  But the folks from the hotels, sometimes, when they ride over in a stage to see the view, praise up the scenery, and I guess it is sightly.  I know that well enough; and I ain’t afraid but what I can do for boarders as well as some, if not better.  What do you think?”