ther boy and girl who
had gone the way of the metropolis.

The Blue homestead was located in the centre of a rather wide rolling
stretch of country which lay between two gently rising ridges of hill
covered with trees. One corner of the farm, and that not so very far
from the house, was cut by a stream, a little shallow thing, singing
over pebbles and making willows and hazel bushes to grow in profusion
along its banks, and there was a little lake within a mile of the house.
In front of it was a ten acre field of wheat, to the right of it a
grazing patch of several acres, to the left a field of clover; and near
the house by a barn, a well, a pig pen, a corn crib and some smaller
sheds. In front of the house was a long open lawn, down the centre of
which ran a gravel path, lined on either side by tall old elm trees. The
immediate dooryard was shut from this noble lawn by a low picket fence
along the length of which grew lilac bushes and inside which, nearer the
house, were simple beds of roses, calycanthus and golden glow. Over an
arbor leading from the backdoor to a rather distant summer kitchen
flourished a grapevine, and there was a tall remnant of a tree trunk
covered completely with a yellow blooming trumpet vine. The dooryard's
lawn was smooth enough, and the great lawn was a dream of green grass,
graced with the shadows of a few great trees. The house was long and of
no great depth, the front a series of six rooms ranged in a row, without
an upper storey. The two middle rooms which had originally, perhaps
seventy years before, been all there was of the house. Since then all
the other rooms had been added, and there was in addition to these a
lean-to containing a winter kitchen and dining room, and to the west of
the arbor leading to the summer kitchen, an old unpainted frame
storehouse. In all its parts the place was shabby and run down but
picturesque and quaint.

Eugene was surprised to find the place so charming. It appealed to him,
the long, low front, with doors opening from the centre and end rooms
direct upon the grass, with windows set in climbing vines and the lilac
bushes forming a green wall between the house and the main lawn. The
great rows of elm trees throwing a grateful shade seemed like sentinel
files. As the carryall turned in at the wagon gate in front he thought
"What a place for love! and to think Angela should live here."

The carryall rattled down the pebble road to the left of the lawn an