o a dark pocket of his mind where an ill-assorted medley of
dreads and fear lay waiting--for what? For a future less confusing than
this inscrutable present? At least, they could not be even glanced at
now. He wrote Charlotte and Jerry, his caretakers on the place at Wake
Hill, that he was coming for an indefinite stay. He instructed his
housekeeper in Boston that the house was to be kept open; possibly Mr.
Richard would be there a good deal. Then he sat down to write his
sister. That was the problem: what should he say to her who would
presently be receiving his unfortunate screed with some inflammatory
introduction from Dick and would--he knew her!--scarcely have finished
it before she took steps toward flooding him with epistolary advice and
comment. He could see her now at her desk, assembling data of conduct,
bodily well-being, and putting it all down in that masterful hand of
hers. That settled it. He mustn't write her. He must telegraph and
forestall Dick. And he did telegraph her, on the moment, a message of
noncommittal brevity:

"Letter Dick sent you is all poppycock. Forget it."

That might, he concluded, yet without hope, keep her from rushing her
pen to the rescue, even if it did not prevent her fuming. And as he sat
at the library table with a disorder of papers before him, Dick appeared
at the door: good boy, full of zeal and pity. He looked so overflowing
with honest affection, so eagerly ready to help that Raven exasperatedly
loved him for his kind officiousness. Yet he had nothing for him but a
gruff:

"Now what do you think you're here for?"

Dick was prepared for repulse, this or any other. He had armed himself
against all possible whims and obstinacies, and he wore the air of a
carefully adjusted patience.

"Can't I help there?" he inquired, advancing to the table and drawing up
a chair. "Couldn't you let me run over those and just tell you what they
are?"

"You go to thunder," said Raven, rapidly assorting, clapping into
bundles and casting aside. "Yes, you can, too. Take this basket and
empty it into the fireplace. Behind the log and smash it down so it
won't set the chimney afire. Remember how your grandmother used to keep
a scare going all the time for fear of chimneys? I guess I've inherited
it. I have to use the formula."

Dick emptied the papers with a grave care foreign to him, as if even so
small a service, at such a moment, bore a weightier meaning, and brought
the basket back. He