"There's you!" said Ella.
"But that's so little!" said Arnold. "O! if you will wait for me!—I will work!—"
"What will you work at?" said Ella.
Arnold laughed. Ella laughed. "I love to camp out!" said she.
"Will you wait for me a year?" said Arnold.
"Ye-es," said Ella. I'll even wait two—if I have to. But no longer!"
"What will you do then?" asked Arnold miserably.
"Marry you," said Ella.
So Arnold went off to his Hill.
What was one hill among so many? There they arose about him, far green, farther blue, farthest purple, rolling away to the real peaks of the Catskills. This one had been part of his mother's father's land; a big stretch, coming down to them from an old Dutch grant. It ran out like a promontory into the winding valley below; the valley that had been a real river when the Catskills were real mountains. There was some river there yet, a little sulky stream, fretting most of the year in its sunken stony bed, and losing its temper altogether when the spring floods came.