could have had them. This
was known, because Jasper Dale occasionally had his hired man's wife,
Mrs. Griggs, in to scrub for him. On the morning she was expected he
betook himself to woods and fields, returning only at night-fall. During
his absence Mrs. Griggs was frankly wont to explore the house from
cellar to attic, and her report of its condition was always the
same--"neat as wax." To be sure, there was one room that was always
locked against her, the west gable, looking out on the garden and the
hill of pines beyond. But Mrs. Griggs knew that in the lifetime of
Jasper Dale's mother it had been unfurnished. She supposed it still
remained so, and felt no especial curiosity concerning it, though she
always tried the door.

Jasper Dale had a good farm, well cultivated; he had a large garden
where he worked most of his spare time in summer; it was supposed that
he read a great deal, since the postmistress declared that he was always
getting books and magazines by mail. He seemed well contented with his
existence and people let him alone, since that was the greatest kindness
they could do him. It was unsupposable that he would ever marry; nobody
ever had supposed it.

"Jasper Dale never so much as THOUGHT about a woman," Carlisle oracles
declared. Oracles, however, are not always to be trusted.

One day Mrs. Griggs went away from the Dale place with a very curious
story, which she diligently spread far and wide. It made a good deal
of talk, but people, although they listened eagerly, and wondered and
questioned, were rather incredulous about it. They thought Mrs. Griggs
must be drawing considerably upon her imagination; there were not
lacking those who declared that she had invented the whole account,
since her reputation for strict veracity was not wholly unquestioned.

Mrs. Griggs's story was as follows:--

One day she found the door of the west gable unlocked. She went in,
expecting to see bare walls and a collection of odds and ends. Instead
she found herself in a finely furnished room. Delicate lace curtains
hung before the small, square, broad-silled windows. The walls were
adorned with pictures in much finer taste than Mrs. Griggs could
appreciate. There was a bookcase between the windows filled with
choicely bound books. Beside it stood a little table with a very dainty
work-basket on it. By the basket Mrs. Griggs saw a pair of tiny scissors
and a silver thimble. A wicker rocker, comfortable with silk cushi