was only stopping in London until we could find
the kind of country house we wanted, and when she asked what kind that
was, I described what we wanted and how we was still answering
advertisements and going to see agents, who was always recommending
exactly the kind of house we did not care for.

"Vicarages are all very well," said she, "but it sometimes happens, and
has happened to friends of mine, that when a vicar has let his house he
makes up his mind not to waste his money in travelling, and he takes
lodgings near by and keeps an eternal eye upon his tenants. I don't
believe any independent American would fancy that."

"No, indeed," said I; and then she went on to say that if we wanted a
small country house for a month or two she knew of one which she
believed would suit us, and it wasn't a vicarage either. When I asked
her to tell me about it she brought her chair up to our table, together
with her mug of beer, her bread and cheese, and she went into
particulars about the house she knew of.

"It is situated," said she, "in the west of England, in the most
beautiful part of our country. It is near one of the quaintest little
villages that the past ages have left us, and not far away are the
beautiful waters of the Bristol Channel, with the mountains of Wales
rising against the sky on the horizon, and all about are hills and
valleys, and woods and beautiful moors and babbling streams, with all
the loveliness of cultivated rurality merging into the wild beauties of
unadorned nature." If these was not exactly her words, they express the
ideas she roused in my mind. She said the place was far enough away
from railways and the stream of travel, and among the simple peasantry,
and that in the society of the resident gentry we would see English
country life as it is, uncontaminated by the tourist or the commercial
traveller.

I can't remember all the things she said about this charming cottage in
this most supremely beautiful spot, but I sat and listened, and the
description held me spell-bound, as a snake fascinates a frog; with
this difference, instead of being swallowed by the description, I
swallowed it.

When the old woman had given us the address of the person who had the
letting of the cottage, and Jone and me had gone to our room, I said to
him, before we had time to sit down:

"What do you think?"

"I think," said he, "that we ought to follow that old woman's advice
and go and look at this house."

"Go