“But how do you know they’ve any rooms?” I expostulated.

Viola looked at me with jesting scorn in her eyes.

“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out.”

She put her hand unhesitatingly on the latch of this apparently sacred domain of a private house, opened the gate, and passed in; I followed her inwardly fearful of what our reception might be.

“Men have no moral courage,” she remarked superbly as we reached the porch and rang the bell.

A clean-looking woman came to the door after some seconds.

“Apartments?  Yes, miss, we have a sitting-room and two bedrooms vacant,” she answered to Viola’s query.  “Shall I show them to you?”

We passed through a narrow, little hall smelling of new oilcloth into a fair-sized room which possessed one of the casements we had seen from outside and through which came the white glow and scent of the cherry bloom and the song of a thrush.

“This will do,” remarked Viola with a glance round; “and what bedrooms have you?  We only want a sitting-room and one bedroom now.”

“Well, ma’am, the room over this is the drawing-room.  That’s let from next Monday.  Then I have a nice double-room, however, I could let with this.”

“We will go and see it,” said Viola.  And we went upstairs.

It seemed a long way up, and when we reached it and the door was thrown open we saw a large room, it was true but the ceiling sloped downwards at all sorts of unexpected angles like that of an attic, and the casements were small, opening almost into the branches of the cherry-tree.

“What do you want for these two?” Viola enquired.

“Five guineas a week, ma’am,” returned the woman, placidly folding her hands together in front of her.

I saw a momentary look of surprise flash across Viola’s face.  Even she, the young person of independent wealth, and who commanded far more by her talents, was taken aback at the figure.

“Surely that’s a good deal,” she said after a second.

“Well, ma’am, I had an artist here last summer and he had these two rooms, and he said as he was leaving:  ’Mrs. Jevons, you can’t ask too much for these rooms.  The view from that window and the cherry-tree alone is worth all the money.’”

We glanced through the window as she spoke.  It was certainly very lovely.  A veil of star-like jasmine hung at one side, and without, through the white bloom of the cherry, one caught glimpses of the turquoise-blue of the sky.  Beneath, the garden with the wandering thrushes and its masses of lilac; beyond, the soft outline of the winding country road leading to indefinite distance of low blue hills.

“We’ll take them for the sake of the cherry-tree,” Viola said smiling.

“Will you send to the station for our light luggage and let us have some tea presently?”

The woman promised to do both at once and ambled out of the room, leaving us there and closing the door behind her.