What could Hilda say to such an invitation from one who had been to her as an elder sister, and whom she loved as fondly as ever sister was loved? She wrote to Dora at the hotel where they lunched and took tea, and gave her letter to Bothwell.
"You are going to Penmorval," he said.
"Yes, I am going there the day after to-morrow."
"And I am to be banished. I am to live here and see that my plans are carried out properly. I daresay my cousin thinks that if I were to stay at Penmorval while you are there I should forget all the serious business of life; lapse into a rapturous idiotcy of love. Well, I am too happy to complain. I shall be happy in the thought that I am building our nest. I shall watch every brick that is laid, every timber that is sawn. You shall not have a badly baked brick or a plank of green wood in your house. I shall think of the plans night and day, dream of them—leap out of my sleep in the dead of the night to make some improvement."
"If you chop and change too much you will have dear to pay," said Miss Meyerstein; and then she launched into a long story about a German Grand Duke, with an unpronounceable name, who built himself a summer palace which cost three times as much as he intended, because of his Serene Highness's artistic temperament, which had beguiled him into continual tampering with the plans.
Never in his life had Bothwell felt happier than on that breezy September day, pottering about the old cottage on the hillside, planning the house and gardens of the future—the study, the drawing-room, the ingle-nook in the dining-room, the little entrance-hall which would hardly be more than a lobby, the closets and clever contrivances, and shelves, and cosy nooks, which were to make this house different from all other houses—at least in the eye of its possessor—the quaint old lattices which were to be retained in all their primitive simplicity, and still quainter casements which were to be added—here an oriel and there a bow—an Early English chimney-stack on one side, and a distinctly Flemish weathercock on the other. Bothwell could draw well enough to show the builder what he wanted done. He had his pocket-book full of sketches for chimneys, pediments, doors and windows, and ornamental ventilators.
"One would think you were going to build a town," said the practical Fräulein.
Never had Bothwell been happier than as he rode across the moors in the fading daylight, thinking of the day that was over. What a simple domestic day it had been—so homely, so tranquil, so sweet; ending with the cosy tea-drinking in the parlour at the inn, Hilda presiding at the tea-tray, and as self-possessed as if she and Bothwell had been married for ten years. The time
