for you, Pert; I thought you'd want to build on the Back
Bay some day."

"Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased inwardly,
but not going to show it, as she would have said.
"I guess you want to build there yourself." She insensibly
got a little nearer to her husband. They liked to talk
to each other in that blunt way; it is the New England way
of expressing perfect confidence and tenderness.

"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.