longer.

"'Drive them down into the valley. There must be a road to that house,'
said Anita.

"I drove on for a short distance, and soon came to a wagon-track which
descended to the little house. 'Anita,' said I, 'I cannot go down that
road; it is too rough and rocky, and we should break something. But why
do you want to go down there, anyhow? You are not in earnest about
living in such a place as that?'

"'But I am in earnest,' she answered sweetly but decisively. 'I want to
stay in this region and explore it. We both of us hate hotels, and I
could be very happy in a cot like that (a little arranged, perhaps)
until the 3d of August, when we have to go North. But I won't ask you to
go down that road, of course. Suppose we come again to-morrow with some
quieter horses.'

"'I am sorry,' said I, 'but I cannot do that. Mr. Baxter comes
to-morrow. You know it was planned that he should always come Tuesdays.'

"She sighed. 'I suppose everything must give way to business,' she said,
'and I shall have to wait until Wednesday. But one thing must certainly
be agreed upon: when we get to that cot there must be no more Mr. Baxter;
you can certainly plan for that, can't you?'

"I made no immediate reply, because I was busy turning the horses in
rather an awkward place; but when we were on the smooth highway and were
trotting gayly back to the hotel, I discussed the matter more fully with
Anita, and I found that what she had been talking about was not a mere
fancy. Before coming to this picturesque mountain region she had set her
heart upon some sort of camping out in the midst of real nature, and
this cot-and-rill business seemed to suit her exactly.

"'I want to go there and live,' she said; 'but I do not mean any Marie
Antoinette business, with milk-pails decked with ribbons, and dainty
little straw hats. I want to live in a cot like a cotter--that is, for
us to live like two cotters. As for myself, I need it; my moral and
physical natures demand it. I must have a change, an absolute change,
and this is just what I want. I would shut out entirely the world I live
in, and it is only in a real and true cot that this can be done as I
want to do it.'

"She talked a great deal more on the same subject, and then I told her
that if it suited her it suited me, and that on the day after to-morrow
we would drive out again and examine the cot. For the rest of the day
and the greater part of the evening Anita talked of nothing but he