After supper, if you like, we
will explore it to its mystic end down by the currant bushes I see from
the window here."
He accepted the basin of water Charlotte gave him, as gracefully as she
presented it, dried his face upon the little towel she handed him, and
declared himself much refreshed. She did not apologize for the lack of a
guest-room where he might remove the signs of dusty travel, nor did she
allude to the absence within the house of most of the appliances
considered necessary in these days for creature comfort. But she
dismissed him to the garden with a finality against which his pleadings
to be allowed to be of use to her proved of no avail, and only when,
after a half-hour, she appeared in the doorway with a pail, and
approached the old well nearby, did he discover a chance to show his
devotion.
"If you knew what fun I should consider it to be carrying plates and
things around for you in there," said he, as he drew the water for her,
"you wouldn't keep me out here. What do you imagine I came a hundred
miles out of my way for--to study the possibilities of landscape
gardening as applied to miniature estates like these of yours?"
"You might do much worse," she responded promptly. "I have spent not a
little thought on just how much trimming to give my old shrubbery and how
much to leave in a wild tangle.
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