"Hosy," she said, as I entered, "I--I hope you don't think I'm too ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if you was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us to--"

I interrupted.

"Hephzy," I said, "I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does it make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it by becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way."

Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.

"Hosy," she cried, "what--a sanitarium?"

"We'll keep it together," I said, smiling. "You and I and Little Frank.

And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment."

Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.

"Why!" cried Hephzy. "You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see anything to laugh at."

"Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho! ho!

Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish situation let me enjoy it while I can."

And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman instead of a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been petrified with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my letter.

For days and days Hephzy and I "house-hunted." We engaged a nurse to look after the future patient of the "sanitarium" while we did our best to look for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from seashore to hills. We saw several "semi-detached villas." The name "semi-detached villa" had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but the villas themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in America, would have called "two-family houses."

"And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,"

declared Hephzy. "I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in 'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks in the other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your cat and if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real unlikely about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all their lives and when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a double house so's they would be right close together all the time. Well, they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They started the fuss and it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green--such an outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle of the front yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and land knows what all. They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be buried in the same graveyard. No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if I can help it. We've got troubles enough inside the family without fightin' the neighbors."

"But think of the beautiful names," I observed. "Those names ought to appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace'

or 'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one--the shack with the broken windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a brick stable."

"I know it," she said. "If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call our house at home 'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know."

"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed.

"'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say."

When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us "estates." These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions, game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some, so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated for their "shooting."

The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good.

We inspected but one and then declined to see more.

"Shootin'!" sniffed Hephzy. "I should feel like shootin' myself every time I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that."

We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of "Leatherhead"--that is, the village was named "Leatherhead"; the cottage was "Ash Clump." I teased Hephzy by referring to it as "Ash Dump," but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered in flowers.

Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to "Leatherhead," but I told her nothing could be more appropriate.

"This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word; we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really, Hephzy, 'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed and deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all.

We should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and be enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's another dispensation of Providence."

"Ash Dump"--"Clump," I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps, Solomon Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual, strongly suggestive of Bancroft's "Henry." He was rather pompous and surly when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the "Clump," he became very polite indeed. "A 'eavenly spot," he declared it to be. "A beautiful neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan chapel." He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.

I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not sure what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They, like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke highly of the "States."

"A very fine country, I am informed," said Mr. Cripps. "New, of course, but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money--yes."

Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.

I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up to the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.

Hephzy's opinion was like mine.

"If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps," she declared. "And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and she was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of an extry cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers.

Father used to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody could see how little he put in it. They were the ones that always brought a stick of salt herrin' to the donation parties."

We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like "Ash Clump." We had almost decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our party on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused to go to Leatherhead.

"Don't ask ME why," said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. "I don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of hers down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that way--this summer."

I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.

"I do not care," said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, "to explain my reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to--that town or that place."

"But why?" I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.

"I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right.

But I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of my claim."

The "claim" could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I chose the former. My desire to shake her remained.

So "Ash Clump" was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.

"It must be," said Hephzy, "that she knows somebody there, or somethin'

like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask her but she won't tell. I wish we did know."

"I don't," I snarled. "I wish to heaven we had never known her at all."

Hephzy sighed. "It IS awful hard for you," she said. "And yet, if we had come to know her in another way you--we might have been glad. I--I think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider thieves--and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious pa's doin's, I suppose likely."

The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George, the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The advertisement read as follows:

"To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry, Sussex.

Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit, tennis court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.

Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."

"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.

"You did!"