What is this place, driver ?" "Pettybaw, mam; a fine toun!" "Will there be apartments to let there ?" "I cudna say, mam." "Susanna Crum's father! How curious that he should live here!" I murmured; and at this moment the sun came out, and shone full, or at least almost full, on our future home.
"Pettybaw! Petit bois, I suppose," said Salemina; "and there, to be sure, it is,--the 'little wood' yonder." We drove to the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, and, alighting, dismissed the driver.

We had still three good hours of daylight, although it was five o'clock, and we refreshed ourselves with a delicious cup of tea before looking for lodgings.

We consulted the greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about furnished apartments, and started on our quest, not regarding the little posting establishment as a possibility.

Apartments we found to be very scarce, and in one or two places that were quite suitable the landlady refused to do any cooking.
We wandered from house to house, the sun shining brighter and brighter, and Pettybaw looking lovelier and lovelier; and as we were refused shelter again and again, we grew more and more enamoured, as is the manner of human kind.

The blue sea sparkled, and Pettybaw Sands gleamed white a mile or two in the distance, the pretty stone church raised its curved spire from the green trees, the manse next door was hidden in vines, the sheep lay close to the grey stone walls and the young lambs nestled beside them, while the song of the burn, tinkling merrily down the glade on the edge of which we stood, and the cawing of the rooks in the little wood, were the only sounds to be heard.
Salemina, under the influence of this sylvan solitude, nobly declared that she could and would do without a set bath-tub, and proposed building a cabin and living near to nature's heart.
"I think, on the whole, we should be more comfortable living near to the innkeeper's heart," I answered.