"Stop!" exclaimed Sophronia, raising impressively the hand which bore her diamond engagement ring; "that is the place, Pierre. (I was christened Peter, but _Miss_ Sophronia never looked encouragingly upon me until a friend nicknamed me Pierre.) I have a presentiment that our home will be at Villa Valley. How melodious--how absolutely enchanting it sounds. There is always a lake or a brook in a valley, too, don't you know?" I did _not_ previously possess this exact knowledge of the peculiarity of valleys, but I have an accurate knowledge of what my duty is regarding any statement which Sophronia may make, so I promptly assented. By the rarest good fortune, I found in the morning paper an advertisement of a real estate agent who made a specialty of Villa Valley property. This agent, when visited by me early in the morning, abundantly confirmed Sophronia's intuition regarding brooks and lakes, by asserting that his charming town possessed both, beside many other attractions, which irresistibly drove us to Villa Valley the next day, with a letter to the agent's resident partner. It was a bright April morning when we started in the resident agent's carriage, to visit a number of houses, the rent of which did not exceed four hundred dollars. "Drive first to the Old Stone Cottage," said Sophronia; "the very name is enchanting." The house itself did not support Sophronia's impression. It stood very near the road, was a quarter of a mile from any tree or bush, had three large and three small rooms, only one of which could be reached without passing through two others, for the house had no hall. The woodwork would have apparently greeted paint as a life-long stranger; the doors, in size and clumsiness, reminded me of the gates of Gaza, as pictured in Sunday-school books. The agent said it had once been Washington's headquarters, and I saw no reason to doubt his word; though I timidly asked whether tradition asserted that the Father of his Country had not suffered a twinge of neuralgia while at Villa Valley. "A Perfect Snuggery" did not belie its name, but in size and ventilation forcibly suggested a chicken coop. "Charming Swiss Cottage" seemed to be a remodeled pig-stye, from which objectionable matter had not been removed. "The House in the Woods" was approachable only through water half-way up to the carriage body; so we regretfully abandoned pursuit of it. "Silver Lake!" exclaimed Sophronia, reading from the memoranda she had penciled from the agent's descriptive list. "_That_, I am sure, will suit us. Don't you remember, Pierre, my presentiment about a lake at Villa Valley?"