“I know who has done this, Mart!  I don’t say much, but I see.  I see now where all your petting of Pa, and humouring Pa, was leading!  Oh, how can you—­how can you—­how can you!  My home, the dear old Monroe place, that three generations of us—­but I won’t stand it!  I feel as if Ma would rise up and rebuke me!  No, you and Pa can decide what you please, but no power on earth will make me—­and where would we live, might I ask?  We couldn’t go to the Poor House, I suppose?”

“Pa’d build a lovely house, smaller and more modern, on the Estates,” Martie explained.  Lydia assumed a look of high scorn.

“Oh, indeed!” she said, gulping and wiping her eyes again.  “Indeed!  Is that so?  Move out there so that Len would prosper, so that there would be one more house out on that desolate flat field—­very well, you and Pa can go!  But I stay here!”

And trembling all over, as she always did tremble when forced into anything but a mildly neutral position, Lydia went upstairs.  The dinner hour was embittered by a painful discussion and by more tears.

Malcolm was somewhat inclined to waver toward Lydia’s view, but Martie was firm.  When Lydia tearfully protested that, just as it stood, the house would made an ideal “gentleman’s estate,” Martie mercilessly answered that at its present level, without electric light or garage or baths, it was just so much “old wood and plaster.”  Lydia winced at this term as if she had been struck.

“How would you pay taxes and interest, if anything happened to Pa?” Martie demanded briskly.

“We would have no rent to pay,” Lydia countered quickly, red spots burning in her cheeks, and giving her mild face an unusually wild look.  “Why do people own their homes, if there’s no economy in it?”

“Rent doesn’t come to three thousand a year!” Martie reminded her.  Lydia looked startled.  “We could rent that whole upper floor,” she said hesitatingly.

“But you would rather have this place a school house than a boarding-house?” argued Martie.

Lydia’s wet eyes reddened again.

“Don’t say such horrible things, Martie!  The way you put things it’s enough to scare Pa to death!  Why shouldn’t we live here, as we always have lived?” She turned to her father.  “Pa, it’s not right for you to consider such a change just because Martie—–­”

“I’m doing it for you, Lyd,” Martie said quickly.  “I shall be in New York—­”

They hardly heard her; Martie had talked of New York since she was a child.  But Martie suddenly realized that it was true; she had really been planning and contriving to go back through all these placid months.

“I’ll discuss it with your brother,” Malcolm finally said.  “I’ll see what Leonard thinks.”

“But, Pa,” Martie protested, “what does Len know about it?”

“I suppose a man may be supposed to know more about business than a woman!” Lydia exclaimed.