I can’t remember all the things she said about this charming cottage in this most supremely beautiful spot, but I sat and listened, and the description held me spell-bound, as a snake fascinates a frog; with this difference, instead of being swallowed by the description, I swallowed it.

When the old woman had given us the address of the person who had the letting of the cottage, and Jone and me had gone to our room, I said to him, before we had time to sit down: 

“What do you think?”

“I think,” said he, “that we ought to follow that old woman’s advice and go and look at this house.”

“Go and look at it?” I exclaimed.  “Not a bit of it.  If we do that, we are bound to see something or hear something that will make us hesitate and consider, and if we do that, away goes our enthusiasm and our rapture.  I say, telegraph this minute and say we’ll take the house, and send a letter by the next mail with a postal order in it, to secure the place.”

Jone looked at me hard, and said he’d feel easier in his mind if he understood what I was talking about.

“Never mind understanding,” I said.  “Go down and telegraph we’ll take the house.  There isn’t a minute to lose!”

“But,” said Jone, “if we find out when we get there—­”

“Never mind that,” said I.  “If we find out when we get there it isn’t all we thought it was, and we’re bound to do that, we’ll make the best of what doesn’t suit us because it can’t be helped; but if we go and look at it it’s ten to one we won’t take it.”

“How long are we to take it for?” said Jone.

“A month anyway, and perhaps longer,” I told him, giving him a push toward the door.

“All right,” said he, and he went and telegraphed.  I believe if Jone was told he could go anywhere and stay for a month he’d choose that place from among all the most enchanting spots on the earth where he couldn’t stay so long.  As for me, the one thing that held me was the romanticness of the place.  From what the old woman said I knew there couldn’t be any mistake about that, and if I could find myself the mistress of a romantic cottage near an ancient village of the olden time I would put up with most everything except dirt, and as dirt and me seldom keeps company very long, even that can’t frighten me.

When I saw the old woman at luncheon the next day and told her what we had done she was fairly dumfounded.

“Really! really!” she said, “you Americans are the speediest people I ever did see.  Why, an English person would have taken a week to consider that place before taking it.”

“And lost it, ten to one,” said I.

She shook her head.

“Well,” said she, “I suppose it’s on account of your habits, and you can’t help it, but it’s a poor way of doing business.”

[Illustration:  “You Americans are the speediest people”]