She had wished him to find her a little nearby cottage in the woods. And she would send him a note with a little picture of this one and that one every now and then. And she trusted his judgment, and she trusted the people that he knew. For, after all, he had been a woodsman these many years already, and if he did not know it himself, he would certainly ask someone else who did. In this, she knew he would never fail her. She had never supposed, ever since they had long ago drifted apart—she in the city and he in the country—that they would ever again be together. Quite certainly not! In that regard, the cottages she sought were cottages for one person alone. And in this regard, too, so had his always been. She fancied that should he find her one, that, by her invitation, he would come to her table every now and then. And, too, that when a thing or two went wrong with her little cottage in the woods, that she could call on him. And in this, she would not have been entirely mistaken. But they were in touch with each other so very little that she could not possibly have known he was already looking quite faraway seaward, away from the woods themselves, where he would find himself someday a little cottage overlooking the rocks and waves crashing there.
Egbert Starr 