convenient pump to give him drinks of water, and at noon we came to the
loveliest wayside well with a real moss-covered bucket; do you
remember?"

"I remember."

"And we all clambered out, and father said it was time for luncheon, and
we unpacked the baskets on the greensward near a beautiful tree, and
father said, 'Don't spread the table too near the house, dears, or
they'll cry when they see our doughnuts!' and Kitty, who had been
running about, came up and cried, 'It's an empty house; come and look!'"

"I remember."

"And we all went in the gate and loved every bit of it: the stone steps,
the hollyhocks growing under the windows, the yellow paint and the green
blinds; and father looked in the windows, and the rooms were large and
sunny, and we wanted to drive the horse into the barn and stay
there forever!"

"I remember."

"And Gilbert tore his trousers climbing on the gate, and father laid him
upside down on your lap and I ran and got your work-bag and you mended
the seat of his little trousers. And father looked and looked at the
house and said, 'Bless its heart!' and said if he were rich he would buy
the dear thing that afternoon and sleep in it that night; and asked you
if you didn't wish you'd married the other man, and you said there never
was another man, and you asked father if he thought on the whole that he
was the poorest man in the world, and father said no, the very richest,