it, 'An entire change in a
place where time is not beaten insistently at the usual
sixty-seconds-a-minute rate, day in and out,' where he shall have no
train-catching or appointments either business or social hanging over
him. At the same time he must not hibernate physically, but be where he
will feel impelled to take plenty of open-air exercise, as a matter of
course! For you see, as a lawyer, Bart breathes in a great deal of bad
air, and his tongue and pen hand get much more exercise than do his
legs, while all the spring he has 'gone back on his vittles that
reckless it would break your heart,' as Anastasia, our devoted, if
outspoken, Celtic cook puts it.

"The exact location of this desired valley of perfection, the ways and
means of reaching it, as well as what shall become of the house and
Infant during our absence, have formed a daily dialogue for the past
fortnight, or I should say triologue, for Anastasia has decided
opinions, and has turned into a brooding raven, informing us constantly
of the disasters that have overtaken various residents of the place who
have taken vacations, the head of one family having acquired typhoid in
the Catskills, a second injured his spine at the seaside by diving in
shallow water, while the third was mistaken for a moose in Canada and
shot. However, her interest is comforting from the fact that she
evidently does not wish to part with us at present.

"It must be considered that if we take a really comfortable trip of a
couple of months' duration, and Bart's chief is willing to allow him a
three months' absence, as it will be his first real vacation since we
were married six years ago, it will devour the entire sum that we have
saved for improving the farm and garden.

"You live on the place where you were born, which has developed by
degrees like yourselves, yet you probably know that rescuing, not an
abandoned farm but the abode of ancient and decayed gentility, even
though the house is oak-ribbed Colonial, and making it a tangible home
for a commuter, is not a cheap bit of work.

"As to the Infant--to take a human four-and-a-half-year-old travelling,
for the best part of a summer, is an imposition upon herself, her
parents, and the public at large. To leave her with Bart's mother, whose
forte is Scotch crossed with Pennsylvania Dutch discipline, will
probably be to find on her return that she has developed a quaking fear
of the dark; while, if she goes to my mother, bless