"'The place is made for us!' I exclaimed on my return from discovering the old barrel and tea-chests. My father was standing in the library looking out upon the garden, and he did not say No.
"From the old woman we learnt something of the former tenants. She was a good-natured old soul, with an aggrieved tone of voice, due probably to the depressing effects of keeping an empty house for a cantankerous landlord. The former tenant's name was Smith, she said (unmistakably English this!). But his lady was a Roosian, she believed. They had lived in Roosia, and some of the children, having been born there, were little Roosians, and had Roosian names. She could not speak herself, having no knowledge of the country, but she had heard that the Roosians were heathens, though Mr. Smith and his family went regularly to church. They had lived by a river, she believed, and their old home was called by the same outlandish name they had given to this. She had heard that it meant a house by the water-side, but could not say, knowing no language but her own, and having (she was thankful to say) found it sufficient for all purposes. She knew that before Mr. Smith's time the house was called Montague Mount, and there was some sense in that name. Though what the sense was, she did not offer to explain.
"'Please, please take it!' I whispered in a pause of the conversation! 'there are six little gardens, and—'
"My father broke in with mock horror on his face: 'Don't speak of six gardens!' he exclaimed. 'The one will condemn the place, I fear, but we must go home and consult your mother.'
"I suppose we did consult her.
"I know we described all the charms of the house and garden, and passed rather a poor examination as to their condition, and what might be expected from the landlord. That my father endeavoured to conceal his personal bias, and that I made no secret of mine. At last my mother interrupted some elaborately practical details by saying in her gentle voice—
"'I think choosing a home is something like choosing a companion for life. It is chiefly important to like it. There must be faults everywhere. Do you take to the place, my dear?'
"'I like it certainly,' said my father. 'But the question is not what I like, but what you like.'
"Then I knew it was settled, and breathed freely. For though my father always consulted my mother's wishes, she generally contrived to choose what she knew he would prefer. And she chose Reka Dom.