It was to be only a story-and-a-half cottage of six small
rooms, the two upper chambers to be finished off later on. Stephen had placed
it well back from the road, leaving space in front for what was to be a most
wonderful arrangement of flower-beds, yet keeping a strip at the back, on the
river-brink, for a small vegetable garden. There had been a house there years
before-so many years that the blackened ruins were entirely overgrown; but a
few elms and an old apple-orchard remained to shade the new dwelling and give
welcome to the coming inmates.
Stephen had fifteen hundred dollars in bank, he could turn his hand to almost
anything, and his love was so deep that Rose's plumb-line had never sounded
bottom; accordingly he was able, with the help of two steady workers, to have
the roof on before the first of November. The weather was clear and fine, and
by Thanksgiving clapboards, shingles, two coats of brown paint, and even the
blinds had all been added. This exhibition of reckless energy on Stephen's
part did not wholly commend itself to the neighborhood.
"Steve's too turrible spry," said Rose's grandfather; "he'll trip himself up
some o' these times."
"_You_ never will," remarked his better half, sagely.
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