The house upon which they gazed, incomplete as were its surroundings, deserved all Drusilla’s praise.
It was a charming little cottage ornée, which, if the truth may be spoken, was much more suitable as the home of a fresh young bride than the resting-place of a worn-out old worldling. It was built after no particular plan, and therefore perhaps all the more picturesque and pleasing in its aspect. It was so irregularly and fantastically erected as to defy all manner of description. From the outside it seemed an eccentric collection of low walls and steep roofs, gable ends, twisted chimneys, hanging balconies, bay-windows, porches, verandahs, and so forth. Its dark gray stone walls and dark green Venetian shutters and pillars and cornices, so harmonized in hue with the colors of the wintry woods, as at a short distance to mingle with them and be indistinguishable from them. Such was the outside of Drusilla’s little home.
The inside was a collection of hexagon shaped halls, chambers, parlors, quaint closets, cosy recesses and sunny nooks.
“Now I will take you round and show you the stable and the cow-house,” said Alexander, drawing his wife’s arm within his own, and leading her around to the rear of the house where, in a neat and well kept stable, he showed her a pretty pair of gray ponies and a neat little carriage.
She looked up in his face to thank him with her eyes, but when she would have spoken, he stopped her with a kiss.
Then he took her to an adjoining compartment of the same building, and showed her a white cow with a young calf beside her.
“I can not thank you enough; no, I can not—not only for all that you have given me, but for the beauty of every object and every living creature you have placed around me—the beautiful house and furniture, the beautiful carriage and ponies, the pretty white cow and calf. Dear Alexander, I thank you so much for all the beauty with which you have blessed my home,” smiled and faltered Drusilla, in a voice broken by happy emotions.
“Beauty! why who was it that, just now, begged and prayed me not to love her for her beauty?” asked Alexander, quizzingly.
“It was I, of course,” said Drusilla, blushing and laughing, “but that was because I wished you to love me for something deeper and more lasting.”
“And so I do, darling; but come—confess that you like beautiful things—that you like even me better for not being ill-looking.”