"Nannie and I have decided," he said quietly. "I regret that you feel so."

"You shall never be married from this house!" cried the aunt.

"We can go elsewhere," said Steve, not realizing that he was walking into a net.

"And you may expect a bitter time after this conduct, miss," she added.

"Mrs. Lamont," said Steve, stepping forward and taking Nannie's little hand in his, "you will force us to an earlier marriage than we had contemplated."

And now Steve was well in the toils of the net, and this was how it happened that Mrs. Lamont was spared further expense for her willful niece, and that Steve all but took Randolph's and Constance's breath away by inviting them to a very quiet wedding which was to take place at a church one morning about a week after this stormy scene, and society buzzed like a bee over the elopement, as it called it, and so forth, and so on, and all at once in the midst of the distractions Nannie caught her breath and cried out:

"Why, goodness me! I'm married!"

And Steve received the news with almost equal dismay.

Really, if the Shah of Persia had presented this gentleman with a white elephant, with long flowing trunk and two tails--three or four tails, in fact--and this little gift had been brought up to his room on a silver salver (always supposing that were possible) he could not have felt much more nonplussed as to its proper disposal and care than he did when he suddenly came out of a dream to realize he had a wife on his hands.

"Where do you wish to live, my dear?" he asked in a tone that might imply that he had all Europe and America to draw from as a place of residence.

He was rather expecting Nannie to say that she wished to reside on Calumet Avenue and to have a coach and four purchased that very day.

But nothing could surprise him now, so he received her abrupt answer calmly.

"I want to live in the country, near Mrs. Chance."

Happily this wish was not impossible of fulfillment, so Steve at once consulted his friends, and after much walking about (Nannie could walk) and much discussion, the four agreed upon a small dovecote of a place about a mile from Randolph's and Constance's home--a dear little cottage with enough land about it to raise anything and everything.

Nannie was like a child with a new toy, and her delight lent her a hundred little airs and graces that would only have provoked Mrs.

Lamont had she seen them. She always said that the child was rude and stupid in society where she should have done her best, and only fascinating with people who could be of no earthly use to her.

And now the little kitchen was set up, the fire was burning briskly, the cook was at hand, and the delectable, indigestible material was ready for the spit.

VI

Why people born and bred for city life _will_ take to the woods; why people shapen, as it were, for the plow will fly to town, and men built for a naval gait will attempt to sit in high places on sh.o.r.e, is one of those elusive problems that are forever defying solution. We only know that such things exist, and a few of us come up and have a crack at them, as it were, and fail to make the slightest impression on their thick skulls. And still the wonder grows. Now it is a naval hero come ash.o.r.e from seas where he was master of the situation, laden with honors and refulgent with glory sufficient for the lifetime of ten reasonable men, who straightway begins to covet a chair of whose very shape and proportions he is ignorant, and in which he can only be conspicuous as a melancholy misfit. O Heroism! why failest them to reach the judgment? O Glory! why canst thou not touch up the common sense? Anon we have a yeoman who has struck oil and has been thrown up on high by its monetary power, forsaking the obscure nook for which nature shaped him and attempting to sit in our drawing-room, eat at our dinner-table, and obtrude his rich vulgarity upon gentler guests.

It was in accordance with this lamentable fashion of undertaking that for which they have no gift; this rushing in of certain folk where angels fear to tread, that Steve turned farmer. Not that he gave up his situation on the paper. Ah, no! He tried to be that which no man could be successfully without supernatural aid--journalist and farmer both. His work in the city had for some time been such that he could do much of it in his room if he chose; indeed, there were times--a day, occasionally--when it was not necessary to go near the office.

Consequently when he repaired to the country with his unique wife, he thought his affairs were admirably adapted to a dual existence.

It was in the merry month of April when they landed. I use the latter term advisedly, for they were indeed upon a foreign sh.o.r.e. All about them Nature was giving evidence of a present awakening from her long nap. With her quickening circulation there was increased warmth, and in this the snow speedily slipped away. A chorus of songsters came out to greet the newly wedded pair, and sang so sweetly of love that Steve's delicate, sensitive nature thrilled in response. Nannie listened and looked at them askance, but to her they spoke, like our opera singers, in a foreign tongue.

Now, this breaking Steve from off his natural tree and grafting him upon an alien bough occasioned some changes. From being cheerful, slow, and gentle he suddenly became anxious, hasty, and at times dictatorial.

"You must have a garden," one of his neighbors said.

Steve went to work like a galley slave upon his spare days, and dug, and raked, and planted.

"You must keep bees," said another of the neighbors.

Steve bought two hives at once.

"You must keep chickens," said another neighbor, a sort of two-edged woman, who dwelt over across the swamp and whose scolding voice could be heard for miles.

So Steve bought thirteen hens and a rooster.

"You must have a cow," said a fourth neighbor, and he promptly sold Steve a cantankerous beast that wanted to rival him in authority, and indeed for a time ran the place.

"You must have a cat," said an old woman who wanted to get rid of an unamiable Thomas, and Steve brought him home in a sack caterwauling all the way.

"You must get a dog," said a man who had a bull terrier for sale.

"I've got one!" bawled Steve--the man was deaf.

"Bull terrier?"

"No, Scotch! and he's all I want!" and Steve closed the front door with needless vigor.

"What did you buy those nasty hens for?" asked Nannie, who did not like chickens.

"Oh, they'll give us something good to eat. It will be so nice to go out every morning and bring in some new-laid eggs for breakfast.

You'll like to do that, Nannie."

"I guess you'd better," she said with a peculiar look.

So the next morning Steve tiptoed out, through the wet gra.s.s, to the hen-house, in his dressing-gown and slippers, he was so eager to pluck this new fruit.

He came in empty-handed, but cheerful.

"We could hardly expect them to lay the first day; they have got to get their bearings."

Every morning before breakfast Steve took this little walk. There was soon a well-beaten track between the back door and the hen-house. He always returned empty-handed, and Nannie watched with an impish smile from an upper window.

One morning she came upon him in the act of taking off a white door-k.n.o.b.

"What _are_ you doing?" she demanded.

He looked guilty, but answered with a fair show of spirit:

"I'm going to put this in one of the nests. You see, they must think a hen has been there and laid it."

Nannie burst into a laugh.

"Well, I wouldn't waste time eating the eggs of hens that would be such fools as to think any poor old chicken had laid that door-k.n.o.b!"

But Steve put it in, nevertheless.