Then he showed her the shaded reaches of his lake, still, starred with lilies, lying dark under the curving boughs of water maples, doubling the sheer height of flower-crowned cliffs.
She held his hand tighter as they wound upward, circling the crown of the hill that she might see the splendid range of outlook; and swinging smoothly down a little and out on the green stretch before the house.
Ella gasped with delight. Gray, rough and harmonious, hung with woodbine and wildgrape, broad-porched and wide-windowed, it faced the setting sun. She stood looking, looking, over the green miles of tumbling hills, to the blue billowy far-off peaks swimming in soft light.
"There's the house," said Arnold, "furnished—there's a view room built on—for you, dear; I did it myself. There's the hill—and the little lake and one waterfall all for us! And the spring, and the garden, and some very nice Italians. And it will earn—my Hill and Mill, about three or four thousand dollars a year—above all expenses!"
"How perfectly splendid!" said Ella. "But there's one thing you've left out!"
"What's that?" he asked, a little dashed.
"You!" she answered. "Arnold Blake! My Poet!"
"Oh, I forgot," he added, after some long still moments. "I ought to ask you about this first. Jim Chamberlain says I can cover all these hills with chestnuts, fill this valley with people, string that little river with a row of mills, make breakfast for all the world—and be a Millionaire. Shall I?"
"For goodness sake—No!" said Ella. "Millionaire, indeed? And spoil the most perfect piece of living I ever saw or heard of!"
Then there was a period of bliss, indeed there was enough to last indefinitely.