Did my lady lately, so "sober, steadfast and demure," blanche or start at this daring, overbearing opening? Not she. She may have blushed a little, but well she knew the ways of her whimsical, perplexing lover. Her eyes flashed back at his with the tender, quizzical look in them and she laughed. Then a soberer expression came, and she spoke earnestly and thoughtfully: "I have heard homesick people, living among the oranges, speak longingly of a place they called 'God's country.' I think we should make our home somewhere in 'God's country,' do you not?" "Yes, dear," he exclaimed delightedly, "but where and what is 'God's country?' We hear about it, but its boundaries seem undefined. I take it that each individual has his or her ideal. I am confident, though, that ours are the same. Is not that so?" "To me," she spoke bravely, "'God's country' is, first of all, where you are, and," she added reverently, "of course God is everywhere." "Bless you," he said, "but, go on. Let us consider what we two think the essentials for our own 'God's country.'" "It must be a country where the grass grows, where sod, turf, close-woven grass, cover the ground," she answered promptly. "The raw, unkempt plains and hills of the arid regions are not for us, nor is the stormless life of the land of oranges and grapes. We want, first of all, the good green sod, and, next, trees, waving, luxuriant elms and oaks and ash and beech and all their kindred, and their vines as well, wild grapes and ivy and bitter-sweet." He smiled. "You have begun with the command in Genesis, instructing the Earth to bear, and so on, but I should go one step back in the epic of Creation and say, let us live by the waters where they are 'gathered together unto one place.' We must have a great body of water near us and, we must have rain." "Yes, in summer, rain; in winter, snow. I want the four seasons." "I don't know where we are to find four, that is an absolutely complete four," he said. "We can rarely boast a spring in its entirety. It seems to exist only in the dreams of the poets, or in England. I saw a real spring in England. But there are some pretty fair imitations of it, I'll admit, in many of our states, notably, for instance, in Michigan and Wisconsin." Adroit, time-serving man! "Well, we can get along without an elaborate spring," she laughed, "if we can have a June, a real June, once a year." And so they considered deliciously until it was decided that "God's country" for them, implied a green country in summer and a white country in winter, with vast water near, if possible, and that from Maine to the Western Mountains it existed, all without prejudice to other "God's countries" for other mortals elsewhere born. Straightforward, reckless, trusting confidence, was it not, this conversation between the man and woman thus rejoined, but he was of the sort who do things, and she was a woman given fully. Besides--though in a world which ended--they had dreamed before.