with late lilac bloom and the hum
of bees. No factory smoke was visible, no Italians.

He looked at the aged house. A black cat sat on the porch thoughtfully
polishing her countenance with the back of one paw. Three diminutive
parti-coloured kittens frisked and rolled and toddled around her; and
occasionally she seized one and washed it energetically against the
grain.

Brown looked at the door with its iron knocker, at the delicately spread
fan-light over it, at the side-lights, at the half-pillars with their
Ionic capitals, at the ancient clumps of lilacs flanking the stone
step--great, heavy-stemmed and gnarled old bushes now all hung with
perfumed clusters of palest lavender bloom.

Leaning there on the picket fence he inhaled their freshness, gazing up
into the sunny foliage of the ancient trees, elms, maples, and one oak so
aged and so magnificent that, awed, his eyes turned uneasily again toward
the house to reassure himself that it was still inhabited.

Cat and kittens were comfortable evidence, also a hen or two loitering
near, and the pleasant sound from a dozen bee-hives, and a wild rose in a
china bowl, dimly visible on an inner window-sill.

There were two characters he might assume; he might go to the back door
and request a job; he might bang on the front door with that iron
knocker, shaped like a mermaid, and ask for country board.

Of one thing, somehow or other, he was convincing himself; this crumbling
house and its occupants knew as much about the recent high-jinks in New
York as did the man who built it in the days when loop-holes were an
essential part of local architecture, and the painted Sagamore passed
like a spectre through the flanking forests.

So Brown, carrying his suit-case, opened the gate, walked up the path,
seized the knocker, and announced himself with resolution.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XIX

WHILE he waited the cat looked up at him, curiously but pleasantly.
"Hello, old lady," he said; and she arched her back and rubbed lightly
against his nigh leg while the kittens tumbled over his shoes and played
frantically with the frayed bottoms of his trousers.

This preliminary welcome seemed to comfort him out of all proportion to
its significance; he gazed complacently about at the trees and flowers,
drew in deep breaths of the lilac's fragrance, and waited, listening
contentedly for the coming foot-fall.

He had not heard it when the door opened and a you