e showed how it was made out to _me_!

"Well, when the time comes for me 'to read my title clear to mansions in
the skies,' I _may_ be happier than I was that moment, but I doubt it. I
don't see how it could be possible. And when I got it through my
bewildered brain that it was _Green Acres_ that was meant by all the
queer measurements and descriptions in the deed, I lost my head
altogether, and Phil had the satisfaction of seeing that his surprise
was absolute, supreme and overpowering. It seemed too good to be true.

"Green Acres is just across the road from Oaklea. The grounds don't make
you think of a big, stately park as Oaklea does. It is more countrified.
But it is the dearest, most homelike, inviting old place that one can
imagine. I had been there several times with Lloyd and Mrs. Sherman, and
remembered it as a real picture-book sort of house, with its low gables
and quaint casement windows. I remembered that it had a garden gay as
Grandmother Ware's, with its holly-hocks and prince's feathers, its
marigolds and yellow roses; and that it had mint and sage and all sorts
of spicy, savory things in some of its borders. But I didn't know half
of its charms. Now, after two months, I am just beginning to discover
the extent of them.

"When a family has owned a place for three generations, as the
Wyckliffes did Green Acres, and have spent their time making it livable
and lovable, the result leaves little more to be wished for. The
hillside that slopes down from the back of the house has a small orchard
on part of it and a smaller vineyard on the other, but both quite ample
for our needs. Down at the bottom a little brook trickles along from a
cold spring, and watercress and forget-me-nots grow along its edges. The
apple trees are in bloom now. This morning I spent a whole hour up in
the gnarly crotch of one of them, doing nothing but enjoying to the
fullest the sweetness of their white and pink glory.

"When we came only the early wildflowers were out, but all the knoll
between the gate and the house looked as if there had been a snowfall of
anemones and spring beauties. It isn't possible to put into black and
white the joy of that first home-coming. We walked up from the station,
and when we went through the great gate and heard it click behind us,
shutting us in on our own grounds, we turned and looked at each other
and laughed like delighted children. It was as if we had reached that
land that we used to sing a