y his _fiancee_ a visit."

"You know he requests me to send him funds to defray his expenses, Aunt
Esther," said Ida quietly; "perhaps the lack of money will avert such a
calamity."

"What an unromantic conclusion to a love-letter!" said Gabrielle
scornfully.

The conversation turned to the depredations of the neighbors and
neighbors' children upon the property. "Mr. Greeley's place" had
always been looked upon in the light of public property, and intruders
walked and drove through the grounds quite as a matter of course, and
helped themselves freely to whatever they liked in the floral, fruit,
or vegetable line. The young ladies, however, decided that they had
submitted to such conduct quite long enough, and we sent to Sing Sing
for some printed handbills warning trespassers off the place.

Two or three days passed, and we had entirely forgotten Ida's erratic
admirer, when Gabrielle returned from a morning walk with the
information that an intoxicated man was sitting upon the steps of the
side-hill house. She met mamma and Ida starting for a little stroll,
and communicated this unpleasant news to them. Mamma, however, is not
timid, and she walked on with Ida, determined to view the invader from
afar, and then summon Bernard to dismiss him.

A figure was sitting, as Gabrielle said, upon the piazza of the new
house, but was so motionless that Ida exclaimed laughingly:

"It is a scarecrow placed there by some one in retaliation for our
notice to trespassers to keep off the grounds."

As they passed it, however, the scarecrow slowly lifted its head and
addressed them with:

"Is this Mr. Greeley's place?"

"Yes," said mamma.

"And is this young lady Miss Ida?"

"Yes."

"You have received, I believe, a few letters from me, Miss Ida: my name
is Hudson."

Fortunately our family are not of a fainting disposition, for a
_tete-a-tete_ with a lunatic was a situation requiring some nerve and
perfect self-control; so, although mamma and Ida were much alarmed upon
learning the name of their visitor, they neither screamed nor fainted,
and mamma invited him quite courteously to walk up to the house.

Mr. Hudson was a tall, powerful man, with cunning, restless, gray eyes,
was well dressed, and wore a linen duster. He had come, he said, seven
hundred miles to see Ida. Upon reaching the house, he followed mamma
into the dining-room where Marguerite, Gabrielle, and I were sitting at
work.

"Ah, Miss Gabrielle!" h