the kind I've finally made up my mind to take."

"Richard! How you do run on!" and Mary, still gently incredulous but a
thought wider awake, let her work sink to her lap. "What is the use of
talking like that?"

"Believe it or not, my dear, as you choose. You'll see--that's all."

At her further exclamations of doubt and amazement, Mahony's patience
slipped its leash. "Surely to goodness my health comes first ... before
any confounded practice?"

"Ssh! Baby's asleep.--And don't get cross, Richard. You can hardly
expect me not to be surprised when you spring a thing of this sort on
me. You've never even dropped a hint of it before."

"Because I knew very well what it would be. You dead against it, of
course!"

"Now I call that unjust. You've barely let me get a word in edgeways."

"Oh, I know by heart everything you're going to say. It's nonsense ...
folly ... madness ... and so on: all the phrases you women fish up from
your vocabulary when you want to stave off a change--hinder any
alteration of the STATUS QUO. But I'll tell you this, wife. You'll bury
me here, if I don't get away soon. I'm not much more than skin and bone
as it is. And I confess, if I've got to be buried I'd rather lie
elsewhere--have good English earth atop of me."

Had Mary been a man, she might have retorted that this was a very
woman's way of shifting ground. She bit her lip and did not answer
immediately. Then: "You know I can't bear to hear you talk like that,
even in fun. Besides, you always say much more than you mean, dear."

"Very well then, if you prefer it, wait and see! You'll be sorry some
day."

"Do you mean to tell me, Richard, you're in earnest, when you talk of
selling off your practice and going to England?"

"I can buy another there, can't I?"

With these words he leapt to his feet, afire with animation. And while
Mary, now thoroughly uneasy, was folding up her work, he dilated upon
the benefits that would accrue to them from the change. Good-bye to
dust, and sun, and drought, to blistering hot winds and PAPIER MACHE
walls! They would make their new home in some substantial old stone
house that had weathered half a century or more, tangled over with
creepers, folded away in its own privacy as only an English house could
be. In the flower-garden roses would trail over arch and pergola; there
would be a lawn with shaped yews on it; while in the orchard old
apple-trees would flaunt their red abundance above grey, lichene