I closed my eyes because they were getting full of tears. He moved away, and I let the tears come. I wanted the country, too; and more and more as my illness grew, and it became increasingly difficult to take my part in the busy city life. The more one’s bodily freedom is restricted by weakness and pain, the more one longs for the unconfined spaces of earth and air, for wide horizons and sweeping winds, and wings that flash far up into the sunshine, above the shadows where one must lie, conning the hard lesson of patient idleness. And I wanted Uncle Milton—the visible link between me and that dear world of hill and sky for which I longed. Return to it seemed so bright a possibility while another heart, even this old Negro’s, held it as dear as I. If he went from me he would leave my hope bereft. I lay with closed eyes, absorbed in longing for that dear receding vision of delight. “Don’ you see how bad she wanter go, Marse John?” said Uncle Milton again, close beside me. I sprang up in amazement, to find him and the Peon by my cot. “She ain’t gwine ter say a word ef she think hit’ll discommerdate you; but de chile’s e’en erbout breakin’ her heart fer de country, same as I is.” “Uncle Milton,” I began indignantly; but the old man brushed my words aside. “You en Marse John fight hit out, honey,” he said. “Mek ’er tell de trufe, Marse John. Hit’s you en her fer it now; Milton’s done his bes’.” He turned deliberately and walked out of the yard. It did not take the Peon long to get the facts, to answer all my objections as to the inconvenience to himself, and to settle finally our immediate return. We would rebuild Cedarhurst at once. “Oh, no,” I cried, “not Cedarhurst! Let us build our own home, all sunshine and out-of-doors! It isn’t the old house that I love; it was too cold and stately and dark—such an indoors kind of house. It’s the hills I’m homesick for, and the sky, and the biggest maple, and the pasture, and the sycamores down by the brook.” “But we can’t sleep in the maple,” objected the Peon, “nor eat in the pasture when it rains. There must be a house.” “Oh, of course. But let it be our house—not Great-aunt Virginia’s. You may really build it any way you please if only you will have porches enough, and so many windows that wherever you sit you can lift your eyes and look right out, miles and miles and miles. And I’d like all the rooms to have a southern exposure, of course, on account of the breeze and the sun, and east windows for winter mornings, and west windows for the sunsets. I don’t care about the rest.” “I insist upon bath-rooms and a kitchen,” said the Peon; “mere scenery is not a sufficient sanitary basis for life. But what shall we call it—Cedarhurst?” “Oh, no! Just a plain, every day, home-y name—something that belongs to us and the birds. Why, we’re Birds ourselves, Peon, dear. Let’s be sociable and call it Bird Corners.”