"The place would not have amused me if
everything had been complete, and if you will help me I shall be so
grateful."
"Of course I will," he said. "The _Temple d'Amour_ would look quite well
up upon that rising ground, and you could have a small winding lake dug
to complete the illusion. Nothing is impossible, and I suppose you can
get permission from the old Wendover who lives in Rome to do what you
wish?"
"I should like to have been able to take the park of the next place, La
Sarthe Chase, too--that impassable haw-haw and the boarded-up gate
irritate me. The boards have been put since I came to look over
everything last autumn. I did instruct the agent, Martin, in Applewood
to offer a large price for it, but he assured me it would be quite
useless; it belongs, it appears, to the most ridiculous old ladies, who
are almost starving, but would rather die than be sensible."
Suddenly John Derringham was conscious that his sympathies had shifted
to the Misses La Sarthe, and he could not imagine why.
"You told me, I think," she went on, "that you knew this neighborhood.
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