"There is no better person," interrupted the Master of the House.
"I do not intend to describe my hero who is to tell the story," continued his wife. "I will only say that he is moderately young and moderately handsome. Various other things about him you will find out as the story goes on. Now, then, he begins thus: I was driving my wife in a buggy in a mountainous region, and when we reached the top of a little rise in the road, Anita put her hand on my arm. 'Stop,' she said; 'look down there! That is what I like! It is a cot and a rill. You see that cot—not much of a house, to be sure, but it would do. And there, just near enough for the water to tumble over rocks and gurgle over stones to soothe one to sleep on summer nights, is the rill—not much of a rill, perhaps, but I think it could be arranged with a shovel. And then, all the rest is enchanting. I had been looking at it for some time before I spoke. There is a smooth meadow stretching away to a forest, and behind that there are hills, and in the distance you can just see the mountains. Now this is the place where I should like to live. Isn't there any way of making those horses stand still for a minute?'
"I tried my persuasive powers on the animals, and succeeded moderately. 'To live?' I asked. 'And for how long?'
"'Until about the 3d of August,' she replied. 'That will be about three weeks.'
"'You mean,' I said in surprise, 'something like this.'
"'I do not,' answered Anita. 'I mean this very spot. To find something like it would require months. What I want, as I have told you over and over again, is a real cot with a real rill, to which we can go now and live for a little while that unsophisticated life for which my soul is longing.'
"Anita and I were taking a summer outing together, and were trying to get into free nature, away from people we knew, and had been several days at a mountain hotel, and were driving about the country. My black cobs now declined to stand any longer.
"'Drive them down into the valley. There must be a road to that house,' said Anita.
"I drove on for a short distance, and soon came to a wagon-track which descended to the little house. 'Anita,' said I, 'I cannot go down that road; it is too rough and rocky, and we should break something. But why do you want to go down there, anyhow? You are not in earnest about living in such a place as that?'
"'But I am in earnest,' she answered sweetly but decisively. 'I want to stay in this region and explore it. We both of us hate hotels, and I could be very happy in a cot like that (a little arranged, perhaps) until the 3d of August, when we have to go North. But I won't ask you to go down that road, of course. Suppose we come again to-morrow with some quieter horses.'