a futile effort to see still farther up the street.

Theodora, meanwhile, sat watching the familiar landscape sweeping
backward past the windows of the express train. She knew it all by heart,
the low hillocks crowned with clusters of shaggy oaks still thick with
unshed leaves, the strips of salt marsh with the haycocks like gigantic
beehives, the peeps of blue sea, sail-dotted or crossed by a thin line of
smoke, and the neat little towns so characteristic of southern New
England. Impulsively she turned to her husband.

"Oh, don't you pity Hope, Billy?"

"What for?"

"To live out there. I suppose Archie's business makes it a necessity; but
I do wish he would come back and settle down near us."

"He would be like a bull in a china shop, Teddy. Fancy Archie Holden,
after having all the Rocky Mountains for his workshop, coming back and
settling down into one of these bandboxy little towns! He is better off,
out there."

"Perhaps. But isn't it good to get back again?"

He looked at her in some perplexity.

"I thought you were having such a good time, Ted."

"I was, a beautiful one; but I am so glad to see blue, deep water again.
I was perfectly happy, while I was there; but now I feel as if I couldn't