“And a better home, with more comfort in it for you.”
“Oh, as for that!” said she.
“I’ve got my eye on a place with old elms in front of it, and moss on the shingles, and a well where you pull the bucket up with a rope over a pulley,” said he. “I’ve got it all laid out and blooming in my heart for that precious mother of yours. It is where mine used to live,” he explained; “but strangers are in it now. We’ll buy them out.”
“It will be such a burden on you. And just at the beginning,” she sighed. “I’m afraid, after all, that I’ll never be coward enough to consent to it at the last.”
“It’s out of your hands now, Agnes,” said he; “entirely out of your hands.”
“It is strange how it has shaped out,” she reflected after a little silence; “better, perhaps, than we could have arranged it if we had been allowed our own way. The one unfortunate thing about it seems to be that this case is isolated out here in the desert, where it never will do you a bit of good.”
“Except the fee,” he reminded her with a gentle smile.
“Oh, the fee–of course.”
“But there is a big hurdle to get over before we come to even that.”
“You mean––”