"It's a good way from the station, pet," I ventured to remark. Sophronia's enthusiasm gave place to scorn; she withdrew her affectionate demonstration, and replied: "Spoken like a real man! The practical, always--the ideal, never! Once I dreamed of the companionship of a congenial spirit, but, alas! 'A good way from the station!' Were _I_ a man, I would, to reside in such a bower, plod cheerily over miles of prosaic clods." "And you'd get your shapely boots most shockingly muddy," I thought, as the agent opened one of the front windows and invited us to enter. "French windows, too!" exclaimed Sophronia; "oh Pierre! And see that exquisite old mantel; it looks as if it had been carved from ebony upon the banks of one of the Queen of the Adriatic's noiseless by-ways. And these tiny rooms, how cozy--how like fairy land! Again I declare, we will take it! Let us return at once to the city--how I loathe the thought of treading its noisy thoroughfares again!--and order our carpets and furniture." "Are you sure you won't be lonesome here, darling?" I asked. "It is quite a distance from any neighbors." "A true woman is never lonesome when she can commune with Nature," replied Sophronia. "Besides," she continued, in a less exalted strain, "I shall have Laura Stanley and Stella Sykes with me most of the time." The agent drove us back to his office, spending not more than ten minutes on the road; yet the time sufficed Sophronia to give me in detail her idea of the combination of carpets, shades, furniture, pictures, etc., which would be in harmony with our coming domicile. Suddenly nature reasserted her claims, and Sophronia addressed the agent. "Your partner told my husband that there were a lake and two brooks at Villa Valley. I should like to see them." "Certainly, ma'am," replied the agent, promptly; "I'll drive you past them as you go to the train." Ten minutes later the lease was made out and signed. I was moved to interrupt the agent with occasional questions, such as, "Isn't the house damp?" "Any mosquitoes?" "Is the water good and plentiful?" "Does the cellar extend under the whole house?" But the coldly practical nature of these queries affected Sophronia's spirits so unpleasantly, that, out of pure affection, I forebore. Then the agent invited us into his carriage again, and said he would drive us to the lower depot. "Two stations?" I inquired. "Yes," said he; "and one's as near to your house as the other." "_Your_ house," whispered Sophronia, turning her soulful eyes full upon me, and inserting her delicate elbow with unnecessary force between my not heavily covered ribs--"_your_ house! Oh, Pierre! does not the dignity of having a house appear to you like a beautiful vision?"