Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/414

 each under its thick green trees, and such green, green grass everywhere—not like Italy, all brown and parched; and then down the road till the turn-off for Crittenden's. For, you see, I also go to Crittenden's. My Cousin Hetty's home is one of the three or four houses that stand around your great-uncle's house and mill. And so up the road to Crittenden's between the mountains closer and higher, up into the quiet valley." Her voice deepened on the last words, and so did her eyes. She was silent a moment, looking out unseeingly on the tropical palms and bright, huge flowers of the Pincian Gardens through which they were now walking.

"Eh bien, since it's you who are going home, you drive on a little farther than my Cousin Hetty's house, until up before you slopes a lovely meadow, smooth, bright, shining green, like the enamel green field in the Limbo where Dante puts Electra and Hector and Cæsar. At the top of the slope, a long line of splendid, splendid elms, like this, you know …" with her two hands and a free, upward gesture of her arms, she showed the airy opening-out of the wine-glass elms, "and back of them a long old house, ever so long, because everything is fastened along together, house, porch, woodshed, hay-barn, carriage-shed, horse-barn." She laughed at the recollection, turning to him. "You've seen those long New England farm-homes? I remember a city man said once that you could see the head of the lady of the house leaning from one window and the head of a cow from another. He thought that the most crushing thing that could be said, but I think those homes perfectly delightful, homely, with a cachet of their own, not copied from houses in other countries. And really, you know," she turned serious, thinking suddenly that perhaps he needed reassurance, "really, it's just as clean as any other way of living. You're just as far away from the animals as with any other barn, because you have so much woodshed and hay-barn and things between you."

To see her face with that quite new, housekeeping, matter-of-fact, practical look gave him the most absurd and illogical amusement. He laughed outright. "Oh, don't think for a moment that I would object," he cried gaily. "I'm not a bit