"Hadn't you better examine the interior first, my love?" I suggested.
"Were the interior only that of a barn," remarked my consistent mate, "my decision would not be affected thereby. The eternal unities are never disunited, nor are—"
"I don't believe I've got the key with me," said the agent; "but perhaps we can get in through one of the windows."
The agent tied his horse and disappeared behind the house. Again Sophronia's arm encircled me, and she murmured:
"Oh, Pierre, what bliss!"
"It's a good way from the station, pet," I ventured to remark.
Sophronia's enthusiasm gave place to scorn; she withdrew her affectionate demonstration, and replied:
"Spoken like a real man! The practical, always—the ideal, never! Once I dreamed of the companionship of a congenial spirit, but, alas! 'A good way from the station!' Were I a man, I would, to reside in such a bower, plod cheerily over miles of prosaic clods."
"And you'd get your shapely boots most shockingly muddy," I thought, as the agent opened one of the front windows and invited us to enter.
"French windows, too!" exclaimed Sophronia; "oh Pierre! And see that exquisite old mantel; it looks as if it had been carved from ebony upon the banks of one of the Queen of the Adriatic's noiseless by-ways. And these tiny rooms, how cozy—how like fairy land! Again I declare, we will take it! Let us return at once to the city—how I loathe the thought of treading its noisy thoroughfares again!—and order our carpets and furniture."