“Oh yes; but I thought you would tell me when you should see fit; and I knew that I should find out when we should reach the spot. I am very much pleased, however, that our home will be in the country.”
“Not the country, darling, though it looks so much like it; only the suburbs of the city.”
“It is all the same to me, and I am so glad we are to live among the trees.”
“I knew you would be, love, and so I chose our home in this neighborhood.”
“But shall you not be lonesome, so far from the city; you, who are so fond of plays and concerts and operas?”
“No, mine own. I shall be lonesome nowhere, with you by my side. Besides, thirty minutes’ drive would take us any evening to any place of amusement we might wish to attend in the city. But here we are at home!” he said, pulling the check-string and stopping the carriage at a rustic gate that crossed the lane in the very midst of the wood.
Some one issued from a very small porter’s lodge on the right and opened the gate. They entered upon a semicircular drive, bordered on each side by cedar-trees, that led them up to the front of a picturesque cottage ornée, built in a sort of composite style.
From every pretty latticed window of this little dwelling, the lights of fires and of lamps gleamed warm welcome.
“Oh, what a lovely little wildwood home!” exclaimed Drusilla in delight, as Alexander lifted her from the carriage and seated her on a bench of the little rustic porch.
“‘Business before pleasure,’ my darling,” he said, leaving her there, and going back to dismiss the carriage.