Now, isn't that a good plan ?" "Yes," said I, "if there could be found people who would build your house and wait for their money until some one would lend you its full value on a mortgage." "Well," said Euphemia, "I guess they could be found if you would only look for them." "I'll look for them, when I go to heaven," I said.
We gave up for the present, the idea of building or buying a house, and determined to rent a small place in the country, and then, as Euphemia wisely said, if we liked it, we might buy it.

After she had dropped her building projects she thought that one ought to know just how a house would suit before having it on one's hands.
We could afford something better than a canal-boat now, and therefore we were not so restricted as in our first search for a house.

But, the one thing which troubled my wife--and, indeed, caused me much anxious thought, was that scourge of almost all rural localities--tramps.

It would be necessary for me to be away all day,--and we could not afford to keep a man,--so we must be careful to get a house somewhere off the line of ordinary travel, or else in a well-settled neighborhood, where there would be some one near at hand in case of unruly visitors.
"A village I don't like," said Euphemia: "there is always so much gossip, and people know all about what you have, and what you do.

And yet it would be very lonely, and perhaps dangerous, for us to live off somewhere, all by ourselves.