We retired early, and in the delightful quiet of our rural retreat, with the moon streaming through our chamber window, Sophronia became poetic, and I grew too peaceful and happy even to harbor malice against the agent. The eastern sun found his way through the hemlocks to wake us in the morning, and the effect was so delightfully different from the rising bell of the boarding-house, that when Sophronia indulged in some freedom with certain of Whittier's lines, and exclaimed:

"Sad is the man who never sees The sun shine through his hemlock trees"

I appreciated her sentiment, and expressed my regard in a, loving kiss.

Again I made a fire out of doors, boiled coffee, fried ham and eggs, made some biscuit, begged some milk of our neighbor, and then we had a delightful little breakfast. Then I started for the station.

"Don't forget the stove, dear," said Sophronia, as she gave me a parting kiss; "and be sure to send a butcher, and baker, and grocer, and--"

Just then our domestic appeared and remarked:

"Arah ye may as well get another girl; the likes ai me isn't goin' to bring wather from half-a-mile away."

Sophronia grew pale, but she lost not an atom of her saintly calmness; she only said, half to herself:

"Poor thing! she hasn't a bit of poetry in her soul."

When I returned in the evening, I found Sophronia in tears. The stove men had not quite completed their work, so Sophronia and her assistant had eaten nothing but dry bread since breakfast. The girl interrupted us to say that the stove was ready, but that she couldn't get either coal or wood, and would I just come and see why? I descended five of the cellar stairs, but the others were covered with water, and upon the watery expanse about me floated the wagon-load of wood I had purchased.

The coal heap, under a window fifteen feet away, loomed up like a rugged crag of basaltic rock. I took soundings with a stick and found the water was rather more than two feet deep. Fortunately, there were among my war relics a pair of boots as long as the legs of their owner, so I drew these on and descended the stairs with shovel and coal scuttle. The boots had not been oiled in ten years, so they found accommodation for several quarts of water. As I strode angrily into the kitchen and set the scuttle down with a suddenness which shook the floor, Sophronia clapped her hands in ecstasy.

"Pierre," she exclaimed, "you look like the picture of the sturdy retainers of the old English barons. O, I do hope that water won't go away very soon. The rattling of the water in your boots makes your step _so_ impressive."

I found that in spite of the hunger from which she had suffered, Sophronia had not been idle during the day. She had coaxed the baker's man to open the cases of pictures, and she and the domestic had carried each picture to the room in which it was to hang. The highest ceiling in the house was six and a half feet from the floor, whereas our smallest picture measured three feet and a half in height. But Sophronia's art-loving soul was not to be daunted; the pictures being too large to hang, she had leaned them against the walls.

"It's such an original idea," said she; "and then, too, it gives each picture such an unusual effect--don't you think so?"

I certainly did.

We spent the evening in trying to make our rooms look less like furniture warehouses, but succeeded only partly. We agreed, too, that we could find something for painters and kalsominers to do, for the ceilings and walls were blotched and streaked so much that our pretty furniture and carpets only made the plastering look more dingy. But when again we retired, and our lights were put, and only soft moonbeams relieved the darkness, our satisfaction with our new house filled us with pleasant dreams, which we exchanged before sleeping. After falling asleep, I dreamed of hearing a wonderful symphony performed by an unseen orchestra; it seemed as if Liszt might have composed it, and as if the score was particularly strong in trombones and drums. Then the scene changed, and I was on a ship in a storm at sea; the gale was blowing my hair about, and huge rain-drops occasionally struck my face. Sophronia was by my side; but, instead of glorying with me in meeting the storm-king in his home, she complained bitterly of the rain. The unaccountable absence of her constitutional romanticism provoked me, and I remonstrated so earnestly, that the effort roused me to wakefulness.

But Sophronia's complaining continued. I had scarcely realized that I was in a cottage chamber instead of on a ship's deck, when Sophronia exclaimed:

"Pierre, I wonder if a shower-bath hasn't been arranged just where our bed stands? because drops of water are falling in my face once in a while. They are lovely and cool, but they trickle off on the pillow, and that don't feel nice."

I lit a candle, and examined the ceiling; directly over Sophronia's head there was a heavy blotch, from the centre of which the water was dropping.

"Another result of taking that liquid blue-eyed agent's word," I growled, hastily moving the bed and its occupant, and setting the basin on the floor to catch the water and save the carpet.

"Why, Pierre!" exclaimed Sophronia, as I blew out the light, "how unjust you are. Who could expect an agent to go over the roof like a cat, and examine each shingle? Gracious! it's dropping here, too!"

Again I lighted the candle and moved the bed, but before I had time to retire Sophronia complained that a stream was trickling down upon her feet. The third time the bed was moved water dropped down upon _my_ pillow, and the room was too small to re-locate the bed so that none of these unauthorized hydrants should moisten us. Then we tried our spare chamber, but that was equally damp.

Suddenly I bethought myself of another war relic; and, hurrying to an old trunk, extracted an india-rubber blanket. This, if we kept very close together, kept the water out, but almost smothered us. We changed our positions by sitting up, back to back, and dropping the rubber blanket over our heads. By this arrangement the air was allowed to circulate freely, and we had some possibilities of conversation left us; but the effect of the weight of the blanket resting largely upon our respective noses was somewhat depressing. Suddenly Sophronia remarked:

"Oh, Pierre! this reminds me of those stories you used to tell me, of how you and all your earthly treasures used to hide under this blanket from the rain!"

The remark afforded an opportunity for a very graceful reply, but four hours elapsed before I saw it. Sophronia did not seem hurt by my negligence, but almost instantly continued:

"It would be just like war, if there was only some shooting going on.

Can't you fire your revolver out of the window, Pierre?"

"I could," I replied, "if that blue-eyed agent was anywhere within range."

"Why, Pierre, I think you're dreadfully unjust to that poor man. _He_ can't go sleeping around in all the rooms of each of his cottages every time there's a rainstorm, to see if they leak. Besides--oh, Pierre! I've a brilliant idea! It can't be wet down-stairs."

True. I was so engrossed by different plans of revenge, that I had not thought of going into the parlor or dining-room to sleep. We moved to the parlor; Sophronia took the lounge, while I found the floor a little harder than I supposed an ex-soldier could ever find any plane surface.

It did not take me long, however, to learn that the parlor-floor was _not_ a plane surface. It contained a great many small elevations which kept me awake for the remainder of the night, wondering what they could be. At early dawn I was as far from a satisfactory theory as ever, and I hastily loosened one end of the carpet and looked under. The protuberances were knots in the flooring boards. In the days when the sturdy patriots of New Jersey despised such monarchical luxuries as carpets, the soft portions of these boards had been slowly worn away, but the knots--every one has heard the expression "as tough as a pine knot." Fortunately, we had indulged in a frightfully expensive rug, and upon this I sought and found a brief period of repose and forgetfulness.

While we were at the breakfast-table our girl appeared, with red eyes and a hoarse voice, and remarked that now she _must_ leave; she had learned to like us, and she loved the country, but she had an aged parent whose sole support she was, and could not afford to risk her life in such a house.

"Let her go," said Sophronia. "If variety is the spice of life, why shouldn't the rule apply to servants?"

"Perhaps it does, my dear," I replied; "but if we have to pay each girl a month's wages for two or three days of work, the spice will be more costly than enjoyable--eh?"

Immediately after breakfast I sought the agent. I supposed he would meet me with downcast eyes and averted head, but he did nothing of the kind; he extended his hand cordially, and said he was delighted to see me.

"That roof," said I, getting promptly to business, "leaks--well, it's simply a sieve. And you told me the house was dry."

"So the owner told _me_, sir; of course you can't expect us to inspect the hundreds of houses we handle in a year."

"Well, however that may be, the owner is mistaken, and he must repair the roof at once."

The agent looked thoughtful. "If you had wished the landlord to make necessary repairs, you should have so stipulated in the lease. The lease you have signed provides that all repairs shall be made at your own expense."

"Did the landlord draw up the lease?" I asked, fixing my eye severely upon the agent's liquid orbs. But the agent met my gaze with defiance and an expression of injured dignity.

"I asked you whether you would have the usual form of lease," said the agent, "and you replied, 'Certainly.'"

I abruptly left the agent's presence, went to a lumber yard near by, and asked where I could find the best carpenter in town. He happened to be on the ground purchasing some lumber, and to him I made known my troubles, and begged him to hasten to my relief. The carpenter was a man of great decision of character, and he replied promptly, ciphering on a card in the meantime:

"No you don't. Every carpenter in town has tried his hand on that roof, and made it worse than before. The only way to make it tight is to re-shingle it all over. That'll cost you $67.50, unless the scantling is too rotten to hold the nails, in which case the job'll cost you $18.75 more. I guess the rafters are strong enough to hold together a year or two longer."

I made some excuse to escape the carpenter and his dreadful figures, and he graciously accepted it; doubtless the perfect method in which he did it was the result of frequent interviews with other wretched beings who had leased the miserable house which I had taken into my confidence. I determined to plead with the landlord, whose name I knew, and I asked a chance acquaintance on the train if he knew where I could find the proprietor of my house.

"Certainly," said he; "there he is in the opposite seat but one, reading a religious weekly."

I looked; my heart sank within me, and my body sank into a seat. A cold-eyed, hatchet-faced man, from whom not even the most eloquent beggar could hope to coax a penny. Of what use would it be to try to persuade him to spend sixty-seven dollars and fifty cents on something which _I_ had agreed to take care of. _Something_ had to be done, however, so I wasted most of the day in consulting New York roofers. The conclusion of the whole matter was that I spent about thirty dollars for condemned "flies" from "hospital" tents, and had these drawn tightly over the roof. When this was done the appearance of the house was such that I longed for an incendiary who would compel me to seek a new residence; but when Sophronia gazed upon the roof she clapped her hands joyfully, and exclaimed:

"Pierre, it will be _almost_ as nice as living in a tent, to have one on the roof; it _looks_ just the same, you know, until your eyes get down to the edge of it."

There was at least one comfort in living at Villa Valley: the people were very intelligent and sociable, and we soon made many pleasant acquaintances. But they all had something dreadful to suggest about our house. A doctor, who was a remarkably fine fellow, said he would be glad of my patronage, and didn't doubt that he would soon have it, unless I had the cellar pumped out at once. Then Mrs. Blathe, the leader of society in the village, told my wife how a couple who once lived in our cottage always had chills, though no one else at Villa Valley had the remotest idea of what a chill was. The several coal dealers in the village competed in the most lively manner for our custom, and when I mentioned the matter, in some surprise, to my grocer, he remarked that _they_ knew what houses needed most coal to keep them warm the year through, and worked for custom accordingly. A deacon, who was sociable but solemn, remarked that some of his most sweetly mournful associations clustered about our cottage--he had followed several of its occupants to their long homes.

And yet, as the season advanced, and the air was too dry to admit of dampness anywhere, and the Summer breezes blew in the windows and doors whole clouds of perfume from the rank thickets of old-fashioned roses which stood about the garden, we became sincerely attached to the little cottage. Then heavy masses of honeysuckles and vines which were trained against the house, grew dense and picturesque with foliage, and Sophronia would enjoy hours of perfect ecstasy, sitting in an easy-chair under the evergreens and gazing at the graceful outlines of the house and its verdant ornaments.

But the cellar was obdurate. It was pumped dry several times, but no pump could reach the inequalities in its floor, and in August there came a crowd of mosquitoes from the water in these small holes. They covered the ceilings and walls, they sat in every chair, they sang accompaniments to all of Sophronia's songs, they breakfasted, dined, and supped with us and upon us. Sophronia began to resemble a person in the first stages of varioloid, yet that incomparable woman would sit between sunset and dusk, looking, through nearly closed eyes, at the walls and ceiling, and would remark:

"Pierre, when you look at the walls in this way, the mosquitoes give them the effect of being papered with some of that exquisite new Japanese wall-paper, with its quaint spots; don't you think so?"

Finally September came, and with it the equinoctial storm. We lay in bed one night, the wind howling about us, and Sophronia rhapsodising, through the medium of Longfellow's lines, about

"The storm-wind of the Equinox,"