Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/369

Rh time—I really will. I want a settled place too, a place where we belong. I'm so tired, as you say, of bumming. I thought when I came home this time that I never wanted to see Europe again. It's the fourteenth time I've crossed that stupid ocean—and oh, I thought of all the years of wandering when I was a child, and how we never had a home. And I'm sick of it. And you and I, Basil, have never had a place of our own. We've lived like two sparrows, building our nest under somebody else's eaves. And I want my own eaves! I want a house somewhere, I don't care if it's in a beastly suburb, or where—and a garden, and about ten acres of trees, and an asparagus-bed, and a cow!"

Basil laughed.

"We'll have it, then—by Jove, that would suit me! But where shall we get the money?"

"Why, we have thirty-five hundred a year, haven't we? We could pay for it in three or four years."

"Yes, but what should we live on, then?"

Teresa looked slightly dashed.

"Oh, we'll make enough to live on," she said, recovering herself. "I can make a good deal if I try—and I won't have any new clothes, and I'll buy all our food at the cheapest shops. I'm sure we can do it."

"Very well, we'll do it. I'll do anything you really want, Teresa."