It was a pleasant resting-place, a palm-grove in the wilderness, where the wayfarer might halt peacefully, and take breath for the rest of the journey. Yet Raymond was determined not to tarry there longer than was absolutely needful. Sir Simon did all that a host could do to make him prolong his stay; but he was inexorable. He spied out a tiny brick cottage perched on a bit of rising ground just below the park, half-smothered in moss and lichens. It was beautifully situated as to view; flowing meadows sloped down before it towards the river; beyond the river corn-fields stretched out towards the woods, that rose like dark waves breaking at the foot of the purple hills; the cottage was called The Lilies, and contained six rooms, three above and three below, including the kitchen. When Raymond offered himself as a tenant for it, the baronet burst into a ringing laugh that scared the stately swan out of his dignity, and sent him scudding over the water like a frightened goose. But Raymond was not to be laughed out of his purpose; he should have The Lilies, or he would go away. He must have it, too, like any ordinary tenant, on the same conditions, neither better nor worse. The lease was accordingly drawn out in due form, and M. de la Bourbonais entered into possession after a very short delay. The room that was intended for a drawing-room was fitted up with the count’s books--the few special treasures he had rescued from the fate of all his goods and chattels four years ago--and was called the library. It was not much bigger than a good-sized book-case, but it would answer all the purposes of a sitting-room for the present; Franceline would never be in his way, and might sit there as much as she liked. The landlord had had a little scheme of his own about the furnishing of the cottage, and had sent for a London tradesman to this effect, intending to surprise Raymond by having it all ready for him. But Raymond was as impracticable here as about the lease. Sir Simon was annoyed. Raymond contrived to foil him and have his own way in everything. He seemed to be half his time in the moon; but when you wanted him to stay there, he was suddenly wide-awake and as wilful as a mule. There was a substratum of steel somewhere in him, in spite of his gentleness; and though it never hurt you, it repelled you when you came against it every now and then, and it was provoking. There was altogether something about Raymond that mystified Sir Simon. To see a man as refined and sensitive as he was, endowed with the hereditary instincts that make affluence a necessity of existence to a gentleman, settling down into the conditions and abode of the smallest of small farmers, and doing it as cheerfully as if he were perfectly contented with the prospect, was something beyond Sir Simon’s comprehension. To him life without wealth--not for its own sake, but for what it gives and hinders--was merely a sentence of penal servitude.