"Are you sure you won't be lonesome here, darling?" I asked. "It is quite a distance from any neighbors."
"A true woman is never lonesome when she can commune with Nature," replied Sophronia. "Besides," she continued, in a less exalted strain, "I shall have Laura Stanley and Stella Sykes with me most of the time."
The agent drove us back to his office, spending not more than ten minutes on the road; yet the time sufficed Sophronia to give me in detail her idea of the combination of carpets, shades, furniture, pictures, etc., which would be in harmony with our coming domicile. Suddenly nature reasserted her claims, and Sophronia addressed the agent.
"Your partner told my husband that there were a lake and two brooks at Villa Valley. I should like to see them."
"Certainly, ma'am," replied the agent, promptly; "I'll drive you past them as you go to the train."
Ten minutes later the lease was made out and signed. I was moved to interrupt the agent with occasional questions, such as, "Isn't the house damp?" "Any mosquitoes?" "Is the water good and plentiful?" "Does the cellar extend under the whole house?" But the coldly practical nature of these queries affected Sophronia's spirits so unpleasantly, that, out of pure affection, I forebore. Then the agent invited us into his carriage again, and said he would drive us to the lower depot.
"Two stations?" I inquired.
"Yes," said he; "and one's as near to your house as the other."
"Your house," whispered Sophronia, turning her soulful eyes full upon me, and inserting her delicate elbow with unnecessary force between my not heavily covered ribs—"your house! Oh, Pierre! does not the dignity of having a house appear to you like a beautiful vision?"
"I strove for an instant to frame a reply in keeping with Sophronia's mental condition, when an unpleasant odor saluted my nose. That Sophronia was conscious of the same disgusting atmospheric feature, I learned by the sound of a decided sniff. Looking about us, I saw a large paper mill beside a stream, whose contents looked sewer-like.