“Well, I am not afraid with or without a cause. A child would not be afraid in this quiet place,” said Rosalie, going to one of the windows, and looking out into the waving woods. “How still—how very still—no sound to be heard but the rustle of the leaves and the ripple of water, that must be near!” she continued, looking from the window, while Mark walked about the room and made notes of glass, putty, a door latch, and such little matters that would be needed to be brought out with their furniture. Then they went out where the driver stood watering his horses, and where the only sign of previous human presence was afforded by the narrow grass-grown path, leading down into a deep dingle, where the ripple of water was heard. “If you’d like a drink, there’s one of the finest springs in the whole country down there,” said the landlord, taking a tin cup from the wagon and handing it to Mark. Rosalie was already going down the path. They reached the spring, and found the water cold and clear as crystal. They drank, and congratulated themselves upon this great blessing, and then went up to the cabin, and, as their host was in a hurry to be off they entered the carryall to return to the village. “Well, are you going to take it?” asked the driver, looking around as he took the reins and started. “Why, of course. I had _already_ taken it.” “I knowed _that_; but I thought when _she_ saw how lonesome it was, she’d object. ’Tain’t many women—I can tell you _that_—who’d agree to live out there, by themselves, in _that_ lonesome place, and you gone all day long.” “I am sure my wife prefers it to an inferior cabin nearer the village.” “Yes, indeed, I do,” said Rosalie. “Well, every one to their taste,” observed the landlord, cracking his whip, and making his horses fly. They reached home in good time for dinner. The afternoon was employed by Mark Sutherland in collecting together necessary provisions, to be taken with their furniture to the cabin; and by Rosalie—seated by the window of _her_ part of the upper chamber—in hemming napkins, preparatory to her housekeeping, and in looking out upon the prairie basking in the afternoon sun, and upon her distant home, Wolf’s Grove. In the evening the hunters returned from an unsuccessful expedition; and fatigued and mortified, and inclined to be silent upon the subject of their defeated enterprise, they gathered around the supper-table. But the curiosity of the hostess, and the perseverance of the host, at last elicited from them the fact that they had not even hit upon the track of the wolves. The next day was fixed upon by Mark Sutherland and his wife for their removal to Wolf’s Grove. CHAPTER XXI. GOING TO HOUSEKEEPING.