along--happily, for it was
sunny weather and summer-time, and, though parents of a family of three,
we were still young enough to find pleasure in novelty and a surprise at
every turn. Our driver was not a communicative spirit, but we drew from
him that a good many houses were empty in this part--"people dead or
gone away, and city folks not begun to come yet"--he didn't know why,
for it was handy enough to town--sixty miles by train--and a
nice-enough country, and healthy--just overlooked, he guessed.

We agreed readily with this view; we were passing, just then, along a
deep gorge that had a romantic, even dangerous, aspect; we descended to
a pretty valley by a road so crooked that twice it nearly crossed
itself; we followed up a clear, foaming little river to a place where
there was a mill and a waterfall, also an old-fashioned white house
surrounded by trees. Just there we crossed a bridge and our driver
pulled up.

"The man you came to see lives here," he said. "The house is ahead, up
the next hill."

"The man" must have seen us coming, for the door opened and he came
through the trees, a youngish, capable-looking person who said he was
the same to whom we had written--that is to say, Westbury--William C.
Westbury, of Brook Ridge, Fairfield County.

Had we suspected then how large a part of our daily economies William C.
Westbury was soon to become we should have given him a closer
inspection. However, he did not devote himself to us. He appeared to be
on terms of old acquaintance with our driver, climbed into the front
seat beside him, and lost himself in news from the outlying districts.
The telephone had not then reached the countryside, and our driver
brought the latest bulletins. The death of a horse in Little Boston, the
burning of a barn in Sanfordtown, the elopement of an otherwise
estimable lady with a peddler, marked the beginning of our intimacy with
the affairs of Brook Ridge.

The hill was steep, and in the open field at one side a little cascade
leaped and glistened as it went racing to the river below.

"That's the brook that runs through your farm," Mr. Westbury said, quite
casually, in the midst of his interchanges with the driver.

"Our farm!" I felt a distinct thrill. And a brook on it! All my life I
had dreamed of owning a brook.

"Any trout in it?" I ventured, trying to be calm.

"Best trout-brook in the township. Ain't it, Ed?"--to the driver.

"Has that name," Ed assented, nodding