her had said to her. "I have secured
for our summer holiday the very house in which you were born. It cost me
some trouble, but I was determined to get it if I could, for I had an
idea that you would be pleased. However, you are not to see it until it
is quite ready."

There was a prettiness and a delicacy in this thought which greatly
appealed to Sylvia. He had spoken it with a smile of tenderness.
Affection, surely, could alone have prompted it; and she thanked him very
gratefully. They were now upon their way to take possession. A little
white house set back under a hill and looking out across the bay from a
thick cluster of trees caught Sylvia's eye. Was that the house, she
wondered? The carriage turned inland and passed the white house, and half
a mile further on turned again eastward along the road to Wareham,
following the valley, which runs parallel to the sea. They ascended the
long steep hill which climbs to Osmington, until upon their left hand a
narrow road branched off between hawthorn hedges to the downs. The road
dipped to a little hollow and in the hollow a little village nestled. A
row of deep-thatched white cottages with leaded window-panes opened on to
a causeway of stone flags which was bordered with purple phlox and raised
above the level of the road. Farther on, the roof of a mill rose high
among trees, and an open space showed to Sylvia the black massive wheel
against the yellow wall. And then the carriage stopped at a house on the
left-hand side, and Garratt Skinner got out.

"Here we are," he said.

It was a small square house of the Georgian days, built of old brick,
duskily red. You entered it at the side and the big level windows of the
living rooms looked out upon a wide and high-walled garden whence a
little door under a brick archway in the wall gave a second entrance on
to the road. Into this garden Sylvia wandered. If she had met with but
few people who matched the delicate company of her dreams, here, at all
events, was a mansion where that company might have fitly gathered. Great
elms and beeches bent under their load of leaves to the lawn; about the
lawn, flowers made a wealth of color, and away to the right of the house
twisted stems and branches, where the green of the apples was turning to
red, stood evenly spaced in a great orchard. And the mill stream
tunneling under the road and the wall ran swiftly between green banks
through the garden and the orchard, singing as it ran. The