We have called it "Wistaria Villa." It is a pretty little place,
the last of a row of detached villas, each with its tiny rustic
carriage-gate and gravel sweep in front, and lawn enough for a
tennis-court behind, which lines the road leading over the hill to the
railway-station.

I could certainly have wished that our landlord, shortly after giving us
the agreement, could have found some other place to hang himself in than
one of our attics, for the consequence was that a housemaid left us in
violent hysterics about every two months, having learned the tragedy
from the tradespeople, and naturally "seen a somethink" immediately
afterward.

Still it is a pleasant house, and I can now almost forgive the landlord
for what I shall always consider an act of gross selfishness on his
part.

In the country, even so near town, a next-door neighbor is something
more than a mere numeral; he is a possible acquaintance, who will at
least consider a new-comer as worth the experiment of a call. I soon
knew that "Shuturgarden," the next house to our own, was occupied by a
Colonel Currie, a retired Indian officer; and often, as across the low
boundary wall I caught a glimpse of a graceful girlish figure flitting
about among the rose-bushes in the neighbouring garden, I would lose
myself in pleasant anticipations of a time not too far distant when the
wall which separated us would be (metaphorically) levelled.

I remember--ah, how vividly!--the thrill of excitement with which I
heard from my mother, on returning from town one evening, that the
Curries had called, and seemed disposed to be all that was neighbourly