tance, that you want to build a house
worth--well, say twenty thousand dollars, in some pretty town near the
city."

"I would rather figure on a cheaper house than that for a country
place," I interrupted.

"Well then, say two thousand dollars. You get masons, and carpenters,
and people to dig the cellar, and you engage them to build your house.
You needn't pay them until it's done, of course. Then when it's all
finished, borrow two thousand dollars and give the house as security.
After that you see, you have only to pay the interest on the borrowed
money. When you save enough money to pay back the loan, the house is
your own. Now, isn't that a good plan?"

"Yes," said I, "if there could be found people who would build your
house and wait for their money until some one would lend you its full
value on a mortgage."

"Well," said Euphemia, "I guess they could be found if you would only
look for them."

"I'll look for them, when I go to heaven," I said.

We gave up for the present, the idea of building or buying a house, and
determined to rent a small place in the country, and then, as Euphemia
wisely said, if we liked it, we might buy it. After she had dropped her
building projects she thought that one ought to know just how a house
would suit before having it on one's hands.

We could afford something better than a canal-boat now, and therefore we
were not so restricted as in our first search for a house. But, the
one thing which troubled my wife--and, indeed, caused me much anxious
thought, was that scourge of almost all rural localities--tramps. It
would be necessary for me to be away all day,--and we could not afford
to keep a man,--so we must be careful to get a house somewhere off the
line of ordinary travel, or else in a well-settled neighborhood, where
there would be some one near at hand in case of unruly visitors.

"A village I don't like," said Euphemia: "there is always so much
gossip, and people know all about what you have, and what you do. And
yet it would be very lonely, and perhaps dangerous, for us to live
off somewhere, all by ourselves. And there is another objection to a
village. We don't want a house with a small yard and a garden at the
back. We ought to have a dear little farm, with some fields for corn,
and a cow, and a barn and things of that sort. All that would be
lovely. I'll tell you what we want," she cried, seized with a sudden
inspiration; "we ought to try to get the end-house of