way. A whole winter went by, pleasantly spent doing the usual things.
Then came spring, a season that not even the city can wholly
neutralize. There were a number of seemingly aimless Sunday trips
beyond the urban fringe. There was considerable casual comment on
various houses in attractive settings. One charming old place ideally
located on a back road proved to be part of a water-shed reservation.
Another equally charming plaster house was "too far out." As we
admitted that, we realized that we had joined that not inconsiderable
group who "want to have their cake and eat it too." That is, we really
wanted a place in the country but we wanted it near enough so that the
desk of the very necessary and important job could be reached without
too much effort. Also the idea of an occasional evening in town was
not to be dismissed lightly.

Such humdrum items as railroad time tables were consulted. Having
decided that the ideal location would be one in which the time
required for train trip and motoring from house to station would come
within an hour, we limited our search to that section just beyond the
suburban fringe in Connecticut and Westchester County, New York. We
had no clear idea of the type of house we wanted, save that it be old
and of good lines. We looked with and without the aid of real estate
dealers. We deluged our friends already living in the country with
queries.

We found a disheartening number of fine old houses, located just
wrong. There was a splendid, two-story brick house with hall running
through the middle. But it stood in the commercial section of a
village, its door steps flush with the sidewalk, and was hemmed in on
one side by a gas station. There was a neat little story-and-a-half
stone house with picket fence, old-fashioned rose bushes, and