"Well, I guess I do," said Lapham, not insisting upon the unselfish view of the matter.  "I always did like the water side of Beacon. There ain't a sightlier place in the world for a house. And some day there's bound to be a drive-way all along behind them houses, between them and the water, and then a lot there is going to be worth the gold that will cover it--COIN. I've had offers for that lot, Pert, twice over what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't you want to ride over there some afternoon with me and see it?" "I'm satisfied where we be, Si," said Mrs. Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in her pathos at her husband's kindness. She sighed anxiously, for she felt the trouble a woman knows in view of any great change. They had often talked of altering over the house in which they lived, but they had never come to it; and they had often talked of building, but it had always been a house in the country that they had thought of.  "I wish you had sold that lot." 

 "I hain't," said the colonel briefly. 

 "I don't know as I feel much like changing our way of living." 

 "Guess we could live there pretty much as we live here. There's all kinds of people on Beacon Street; you mustn't think they're all big-bugs. I know one party that lives in a house he built to sell, and his wife don't keep any girl. You can have just as much style there as you want, or just as little. I guess we live as well as most of 'em now, and set as good a table. And if you come to style, I don't know as anybody has got more of a right to put it on than what we have." 

 "Well, I don't want to build on Beacon Street, Si," said Mrs. Lapham gently. 

 "Just as you please, Persis. I ain't in any hurry to leave." 

 Mrs. Lapham stood flapping the cheque which she held in her right hand against the edge of her left. 

 The Colonel still sat looking up at her face, and watching the effect of the poison of ambition which he had artfully instilled into her mind. 

 She sighed again--a yielding sigh.  "What are you going to do this afternoon?" 

 "I'm going to take a turn on the Brighton road," said the Colonel. 

 "I don't believe but what I should like to go along," said his wife. 

 Prev. P 26/309 next