the fragrance of the new mown hay from the Glen-Rridge meadow more
agreeable than the fragrant odors which the westerly winds waft over
to Murray Hill from the bone boiling establishments of the Hudson
river. Every evening Jennie met me at the train with Tom--Mr. Lines'
best horse, whom I liked so well that I hired him for the season;
and we took long drives and renewed the scenes of five years before,
when Jennie was Jennie Malcolm, and I was just graduating from
Harvard law-school. And still the diplomate never hinted at the idea
of making a home at Wheathedge.

But one day as we drove by Mr. Sinclair's she remarked casually,
"What a pretty place!"

It was a pretty place. A little cottage, French gray with darker
trimmings of the same; the tastiest little porch with a something or
other--I know the vine by sight but not to this day by name--creeping
over it, and converting it into a bower; another porch fragrant with
climbing roses and musical with the twittering of young swallows who
had made their nests in little chambers curiously constructed under
the eaves and hidden among the sheltering leaves; a green sward
sweeping down to the road, with a few grand old forest trees
scattered carelessly about as though nature had been the landscape
gardner; and prettiest of all, a little boy and girl playing horse
upon the gravel walk, and filling the air with shouts of merry
laughter--all this combined to make as pretty a picture as one would
wish to see. The western sun poured a flood of light upon it through
crimson clouds, and a soft glory from the dying day made this little
Eden of earth more radiant by a baptism from heaven.

I wonder now if Jennie had been waiting for a favorable opportunity