fascinating in its very immensity.

Somewhere beyond the cottage--"shack," she usually corrected herself--were
the corrals; they were as yet rather impressionistic; high, round,
mysterious inclosures forming an effective, if somewhat hazy, background to
the picture. She left them to work out their attractive details upon closer
acquaintance, for at most they were merely the background. The front yard,
however, she dwelt upon, and made aglow with sturdy, bright-hued flowers.
Manley had that spring planted sweet peas, and poppies, and pansies, and
other things, he wrote her, and they had come up very nicely. Afterward,
in a postscript, he answered her oft-repeated questions about the flower
garden:

The flowers aren't doing as well as they might. They need your tender care.
I don't have much time to pet them along. The onions are doing pretty well,
but they need weeding badly.

In spite of that, the flowers bloomed luxuriantly in her mental picture,
though she conscientiously remembered that they weren't doing as well as
they might. They were weedy and unkempt, she supposed, but a little time
and care would remedy that; and was she not coming to be the mistress of
all this, and to make everything beautiful? Besides, the spring, and the
brook which ran from it, and the trees which shaded it, were the chief
attractions.

Perhaps she betrayed a lack of domesticity because she had not been able
to "see" the interior of the cottage--"shack"--very clearly. Sunny rooms,
white curtains, bright cushions and books, pictures and rugs mingled
together rather confusingly in her mind when she dwelt upon the inside of
her future home. It would be bright, and cozy, and "homy," she knew. She