ite gables of a cottage thrusting over against a space of blue sky.
Flights of swallows flew shrieking past, and the large elms on the
right threw out branches so invitingly that Owen thought of long
hours passed in the shade with books and music; but, despite these
shady elms, the cottage wore a severe air--a severe cottage it was,
if a cottage can be severe. Owen was glad Evelyn hadn't forgotten a
verandah.

"A verandah always suggests a Creole. But there is no Creole in you."

"You wouldn't have thought my cottage severe if you hadn't known that
I had come from a convent, Owen. You like it, all the same."

Owen fell to praising the cottage which he didn't like.

"On one thing I did insist--that the hall was to be the principal
room. What do you think of it? And tell me if you like the
chimney-piece. There are going to be seats in the windows. Of course,
I
haven't half finished furnishing." And she took him round the room,
telling how lucky she had been picking up that old oak dresser with
handles, everything complete for five pounds ten, and the oak settle
standing in the window for seven.

"I can't consider the furniture till I have put these flowers in
water." So he fetched a vase and filled it, and when his nosegay had
been sufficiently admired, he said "But, Evelyn, I must give you some
flower-vases.... And you have no writing-table."

"Not a very good one. You see, I have had to buy so many things."

"You must let me give you one. The first time you come up to London
we will go round the shops."

"You'll want to buy me an expensive piece, unsuitable to my cottage,
won't you, Owen?" She led him through the dining-room past the
kitchen, into which they peeped.

"Eliza's cooking an excellent dinner!" he said. And they went through
the kitchen into the garden.

"You see what a piece of ground I have. We are enclosing it." And
Owen saw two little boys painting a paling. "Now, do you like the
green? It was too green, but this morning I put a little yellow into
it; it is better now." They walked round the acre of rough ground
overlooking the valley, Owen saying that Evelyn was quite a landed
proprietor.

"But who are these boys? You have quite a number," he said, coming
upon three more digging, or trying to dig.

"They are digging the celery-bed."

"But one is a hunchback, he can't do much work; and that one has a
short leg; the third boy seems all right, but he isn't more than
seven or eight. I am af