at all surprising that we should, now and then, feel a strong desire
to remove from the old, and get into new locations, and amid
different external associations. Thus, we find, in many families, an
ever recurring tendency to removal. Indeed, I have some housekeeping
friends who are rarely to be found in the same house, or in the same
part of the city, in any two consecutive years. Three moves,
Franklin used to say, were equal to a fire. There are some to whom I
could point, who have been, if this holds true, as good as burned
out, three or four times in the last ten years.

But, I must not write too long a preface to my present story. Mr.
Smith and myself cannot boast of larger organs of Inhabitativeness--
I believe, that is the word used by phrenologists--than many of
our neighbors. Occasionally we have felt dissatisfied with the
state of things around us, and become possessed of the demon of
change. We have moved quite frequently, sometimes attaining superior
comfort, and some times, getting rather the worst of, it for
"the change."

A few years ago, in the early spring-time, Mr. Smith said to me, one
day:

"I noticed, in riding out yesterday, a very pleasant country house
on the Frankford Road, to let, and it struck me that it would be a
fine thing for us, both as to health and comfort, to rent it for the
summer season. What do you think of it?"

"I always, loved the country, you know," was my response.

My heart had leaped at the proposition.