Galusha murmured something, something meant to be sympathetic.  Miss Phipps’ evident distress and mental agitation moved him extraordinarily.  He wanted to say many things, reassuring things, but he could not at the moment think of any.  The best he could do was to stammer a hope that she would not be obliged to sell the house.

She shook her head.  “I’m afraid I shall,” she said.  “I don’t see how I can possibly keep it much longer.  When father died he left me, so he thought, with enough income to get along on.  It wasn’t much—­fact is, it was mighty little—­but we could and did get along on it, Primmie and I, without touchin’ my principal.  But then came the war and ever since livin’ costs have been goin’ up and up and up.  Now my income is the same as it was, but what it will buy is less than half.  It doesn’t cost much to live down here, but I’m afraid it costs more than I can afford.  If I begin to take away from my principal I’ll have to keep on doin’ it and pretty soon that will be all gone.  After that—­well, I don’t want to look any further than that.  I shouldn’t starve, I presume likely; while I’ve got hands I can work and I’d manage to keep alive, if that was all.  But it isn’t all.  I’d like to keep on livin’ in my own home.  And I can’t do that, Mr. Bangs.  I can’t do that, as things are now.  I must either get some more money somehow, or sell this house, one or the other.”

Galusha leaned eagerly forward.  He had been waiting for an excuse and now he believed he saw one.

“Oh, Miss Phipps,” he cried, “I—­I think I can arrange that.  I do indeed.  You see, I have—­ah—­more money than I need.  I seldom spend my money, you know, and—­”

She interrupted him and her tone was rather sharp.

“Don’t, Mr. Bangs,” she said.  “Don’t say any more.  If you’ve got the idea that I’m hintin’ for you to lend me money—­you or anybody else—­you never was more mistaken in your life.  Or ever will be.”

Galusha turned red.  “I beg your pardon,” he faltered.  “Of course I know you were not hinting, Miss Martha.  I—­I didn’t dream of such a thing.  It was merely a thought of my own.  You see, it would be such a favor to me if you would permit me to—­to—­”

“Don’t.”

“But, Miss Phipps, it would be doing me such a great favor.  Really, it would.”

He was so very much in earnest that, in spite of her own stress of mind, she could not help smiling.

“A great favor to help you get rid of your money?” she asked.  “You havin’ such a tremendous lot of it, I presume likely.”

“Yes—­ah—­yes, that’s it, that’s it.”

Her smile broadened.  “And ’twas because you were so dreadfully rich that you came here to East Wellmouth to live, I suppose.  Mr. Bangs, you’re the kindest, best-hearted man that ever stepped, I do believe, but truly I doubt if you know whether you’re worth ten dollars or ten hundred.  And it doesn’t make the least difference, so far as I am concerned.  I’ll never borrow money while I’m alive and I’ll try to keep enough one side to bury me after I’m dead.  So don’t say any more about lendin’.  That’s settled.”