ater and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."

"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.

"You did!"

"Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live
in a rectory, wouldn't it."

"Lovely--and expensive," I answered. "I'm afraid a rectory with tennis
courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything."

But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than
the advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher
than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The
rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place
for ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where
the trap would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill,
it appeared.

We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
the most particular member of our party.

"It's no use doing anything until we ask her," she said. "She may be as
down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead."

But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing
and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright,
sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at
Haddington on Hill.

Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
middle of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near
the railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the
only passengers to leave the train there.

The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black,
plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched
his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed
up beside her.

The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of
a fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
characteristic of good weather in England.

Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smal