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“‘The train will arrive here?’ said I. ‘What do you mean?’

“‘The M. B. & T. line runs within a mile and a half of this place, and my trains will all be switched off at a convenient place near here.’

“‘I would not have supposed there was a side-track there,’ I remarked.

“‘Oh, no,’ he replied, ‘there was none; but I am now having two built. All the different gangs of men will sleep on the freight-cars, which have been fitted up with bunks. The wood-cutters and the landscape-men, hedgers, sodders, and all that arrived about an hour ago, and I am expecting the mechanics’ train late this afternoon. The gardeners will not arrive until to-morrow; but if it keeps on raining, that will give them time enough. They want wet weather for their work.'”

“Excuse me,” said the Master of the House, who had now finished his cigar and was sitting upright in his chair, “but didn’t you omit to state that your hero was the King of Siam?”

“I have nothing of the kind to state,” answered his wife. “He is merely an American gentleman.

“When I heard of the great works that were going on, I exclaimed: ‘Look here, Baxter, you must be careful about what you are doing. If you make this place look like a vast cemetery, all laid out in smooth grass and gravelled driveways, my wife won’t like it. She wants to live in a cot, and she wants everything to be cottish and naturally rural.’

“‘That is just what I am going to make it,’ said he. ‘The highest grade of true naturalism is what I am aiming at in house and grounds. To-morrow afternoon you can look at the house. Everything will be done then, and the furniture will all be in place, and if you want any change there will be time enough.’

“The next day I went to the cot; but before I reached it I stopped. ‘Baxter,’ I said, ‘you have done very well with this rill; it is quite a roaring little torrent.’

“‘Yes,’ said he; ‘and down below they are working on some waterfalls, but they are not quite finished.’

“When I reached the house I did not exactly comprehend what I saw; it was the same house, and yet it was entirely different. It seemed to have grown fifty years older than it was when I first saw it. Its color was that of wood beautifully stained by age. There was a low piazza I had not noticed, which was covered with vines. Bright-colored old-fashioned flowers were growing in beds close to the house, and there was a pathway, bordered by box bushes, which led from the front door to a gateway in a stone wall which partly surrounded the green little yard. I had not noticed before the gateway or the stone wall, on which grew bitter-sweet vines and Virginia creeper.

“‘Now, you see,’ said Baxter, ‘this grass here is not smooth green turf, fresh from the lawn-mower. It is natural grass, with wild flowers in it here and there. Nearly all of it was brought from a meadow about a mile away from here. But now step inside a minute. Everything there is of the period of 1849: horsehair, you see, lots of black walnut, color all toned down, and all the ornaments covered with netting to keep the flies off.’

“I was interested and amused; but I told Baxter I did not want to see everything now; I wished to enjoy the place with my wife when we should come to it. He was doing admirably, and I would leave everything to him. As I stood on the little portico and looked over the valley, I saw what seemed to be a regiment of men coming out of the woods and crossing a field.

“‘That is the first division of the wire-fence men,’ said Baxter, ‘going to supper. They are divided into three sections, and one gang relieves another, so that the work is kept going all night by torchlight.’