aspect, and that's the back door. I asked the agent about the sand.
He advised me, if I wanted it in any quantity, to get an estimate
from the Railway Company. I wanted it on a hill. It is on a hill,
with a bigger hill in front of it. I didn't want that other hill. I
wanted an uninterrupted view of the southern half of England. I
wanted to take people out on the step, and cram them with stories
about our being able on clear days to see the Bristol Channel. They
might not have believed me, but without that hill I could have stuck
to it, and they could not have been certain--not dead certain--I was
lying.

"Personally, I should have liked a house where something had
happened. I should have liked, myself, a blood-stain--not a fussy
blood-stain, a neat unobtrusive blood-stain that would have been
content, most of its time, to remain hidden under the mat, shown only
occasionally as a treat to visitors. I had hopes even of a ghost. I
don't mean one of those noisy ghosts that doesn't seem to know it is
dead. A lady ghost would have been my fancy, a gentle ghost with
quiet, pretty ways. This house--well, it is such a sensible-looking
house, that is my chief objection to it. It has got an echo. If you
go to the end of the garden and shout at it very loudly, it answers
you back. This is the only bit of fun you can have with it. Even
then it answers you in such a tone you feel it thinks the whole thing
silly--is doing it merely to humour you. It is one of those houses
that always seems to be thinking of its rates and taxes."

"Any reason at all for your having bought it?" asked Dick.

"Yes, Dick," I answered. "We are all of us tired of this suburb. We
want to live in the country and be good. To live in the country with