The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1896-03-20
A HOUSE TO LET.

and exceptional sanitary arrangements.
Sloping garden to river. boat, boat
house, stabling, fruit garden, etc.
Yet despite the alluring character of
this announcement, the bijou residence
went through two seasons inlet, its
notice boards leaning lower and lower
as the seasons went on over the stone
boxed fringed garden walls with pa
thetio responsibility.
At length, simultaneously one morn
ing in late July, two people caught the
glow of that announcement from oppo-
site corners of England-the one a
man, the other a woman-and they bent
their faces in its direction.
A geographical-as well as a railway
time book-dispensation decreed also
that those two people should make their
debut simultaneously at the little way
side station, situated some mile and
half from the bijou residence III ques-
ton. After that, how much fate or des
tiny had to do with it, how much man,
how much woman, remains problemat-
ical | defy two people of the opposite
sexes to walk for a mile and "A half
along boxed i'll country lane and not
be oppressively conscious of each other.
/ defy a man possessed of the slightest
moiety of taste not to pick out the vari-
Gus beauties of that woman if she have
them and briefly tabulate them on the
retina of his appreciation as he walks.
defy her, if she have a grain of that
coquetry which is said to be innate in
woman, not to display those beauties to
the best advantage for his especial de-
location.
And what woman ever walks along
country road rich in wild flowers with
out stopping every five minutes to pick
samples of them?
Finally, the two drew up at the gar
den gate, if not simultaneously almost
so, the man pushing the gate wide for
her and waiting. and they arrived face
to face under the trellised porch.
The woman had put bunch of scarlet
rowan berries in her hat, correspond
ing bunch in her waistband. She held
sufficient wild grasses and flora i'll her
arms to decorate font at harvest fes-
tival Her dark gypsy face had caught
glow from these berries; her dark eyes
shone; she was not young, the man
thought, but extremely attractive.
The sound of advancing footsteps
footsteps presumably of the caretaker-
reused him from his temporary aberra
ton. 1t occurred to him that speech was
the only thing possible to save the situa
ton. He raised his hat, displaying Il
grizzled but patrician head, and smiled.
''Is the house let them" he asked.
The woman showed a CLEAN of teeth
under the rich undulating curve of her
red lips.
"That was just the question l was
going to put to you, she answered.
"No," he said. 81 have merely come
from Dorchester to look at it. -
"And have come from Cromer."
In the pause of which announcement,
woman, in sunhonnet and clogs, with
that reticence which the caretaker ex-
hibits when she does not want to let the
house. slowly opened the door. She
moved back, making room for them to
enter, making at the same time de-
predatory movement with her bare
arms. cts all very nice and convenient
like" she said, indicating the tiny
drawing room on the right, the tiny din
ing room ON the left, the hlliputian
kitchen in perspective, the narrow stair
way intervening, fur a bachelor. or a
spinster, but not fur them es is married.
For them es is married-an l flatter
myself es l knows, being myself mar
ried woman-this ERE bijou residence
amt 'alf nor yet quarter, large enough.
A man may be es fond o his wife es
ever it is possible fur i'm to be, a wo-
man may be es fond of 'er 'usband es
Ter ever ken be, but they don't want to
be knocking up agin each other all the
,livelong day.
Here the figure in the rowan berries
summarily disappeared into the tiny
drawing room. The tall patrician man,
preternaturally embarrassed, strobe into
the tiny dining room, and the garrulous
caretaker was left to finish her speech
to empty benches. She imagined herself
to be woman Of singular penetration,
however. 1t was her boast that she
could grasp situation at glance and
take it all in. Therefore she was by no
means disconnected till fiutter of skirts
smote her ear and the woman with the
rowan berries reappeared, the man hav
ing gone up stairs, saying i'll Il whisper,
with Indignation traceable i'll every
word:
''That gentleman is perfect stranger
to me. l have never seen him before
today i'll my life. We CHANGED to arrive
at the station together and to walk up
to the house together. And now you
can go. There is no occasion for you to
follow me over the house. | prefer TO
look at it alone. By the bye" she add
ed, II should advise the owners of it to
put it in other hands. You evidently
don't want to let it'll
1t does not take long to look over
six roomed cottage. In ten minutes the
man was out on the slope of garden in
the rear looking idly ahead OF him
across the reach. He had seen in flash
through the staircase window the rowan
berries going up stairs. He caught in a
flash now the rowan berries coming
down
"Will she go straight out by the hall
door, he asked himself, "or come into
the garden?"
A rustic of the silk skirts coming
down the path toward him, glimpse
of a comedy figure silhouetted momen-
tarily against the pendent ivy, was the |
agreeable answer to this query.
LAS we have both come very long
distances and indisputably upon the same |
quest, she began, sit is but fair, in
deed the right and civil thing TO do, |
think, to ask you if you. have come to |
any decision about the house? 1 be- |
Geve"-here her eyebrows went up, and |
she showed a CLEAN of teeth-"in all |
business matters man takes precedence.
but, in matters of sentiment, he |
interrupted her, woman.
Sentiment" she said. "Do you |
think, then, that even in her business |
transactions a woman is necessarily SELL
timental?''
II certainly do" he answered.
She moved on down nearer the tagged |
edge of the reach and stood looking |
away across it TO the green meadows OPP |
posite, each detail of her charming per
son duplicated in the water with dis |
tracing accuracy.
"Ah, if you knew me better, she |
said, you would find that am a most |
prosaic creature. l threw aside senti
ment ten years ago, when threw aside |
my youth. My head at this moment, if |
you could only see the workings of it,
is full of the prosiest speculations as to
the drainage of the cottage, the exact