. "I never fish, myself, but I've
seen some good ones they said come out of it."

[Illustration]

We were up the hill by this time, and Mr. Westbury waved his hand to a
sloping meadow at the left.

"That's one of the fields. Over there on the right is some of your
timber, and up the hill yonder is the rest of it. Thirty-one acres, more
or less. The brook runs through all of it--crosses the road yonder where
you see that bridge."

I could feel my pulse getting quicker. There was no widely extended
view, but there was a snug coziness about these neighborly meadows and
wooded slopes, with the brook winding between; this friendly road with
its ancient stone walls, all but concealed now by a mass of ferns or
brake on one side, and on the other by a tangle of tall grass,
goldenrod, purple-plumed Joe Pye weed, wild grape with big mellowing
clusters, wild clematis in full bloom. New England in summer-time! What
other land is like it? Our brook, our farm, here in the land of our
fathers! There were a warmth, a glow, a poetry in the thought that
cannot be put down in words--something to us new and wonderful, yet as
old as human wandering and return.

But then all at once we were pulling up abreast of two massive
maple-trees and some stone steps.

[Illustration: _"And here is your house," said William C. Westbury_]

"And here is your house," said William C. Westbury.

II

_Ghosts like good architecture_

I believe I cannot quite give to-day my first impression of the house.
In the years that have followed it has blended into so many other
impressions that I could never be sure I was getting the right one. I
had better confine myself to its physical appearance and what was
perhaps a reflex impression--say, number two.

One glance was enough to show that it was all that the other old house
was not. It did not sag, or lurch, or do any of those disreputable
things. It stood up as straight and was as firm on its foundations as on
the day when its last hand-wrought nail had been driven home, a century
or so before. No mistaking its period or architecture--it was the
long-roofed salt-box type, the first Connecticut habitation that
followed the pioneer cabin; its vast central chimney had held it
unshaken during the long generations of sun and storm.

Not that it was intact--oh, by no means. Its wide weather-boards were
broken and falling; the red paint they had once known had become a mere
memory, its shingles were moss-