ropolis of nerves
and pulse and feverish corpuscles across the bay.

Lawns sloped to the lake. At the head of the lawns were large imposing
mansions, the homes of the aristocracy of the city, all owned by Dr.
Webster, and leased at high rental to a favored few. To dwell on
Webster Lake was to hold proud and exclusive position in the community,
well worth the attendant ills. To purchase of those charmed acres was as
little possible as to induce the Government to part with a dwelling-site
in Yosemite Valley.

Webster Hall was twenty years older than the tributary mansions. The
trees about it were large and densely planted. When storms tossed the
lake they whipped the roof viciously or held the wind in longer wails.
There was an air of mystery about the great rambling sombre house; and
yet no murder had been done there, no traveller had disappeared behind
the sighing trees to be seen no more, no tale of horror claimed it as
birthplace. The atmosphere was created by the footprints of time on a
dwelling old in a new land. The lawns were unkempt, the bare windows
stared at the trees like unlidded eyes. Children ran past it in the
night. The unwelcomed of the spreading city maintained that if nothing
ever had happened there something would; that the place spoke its
manifest destiny to the least creative mind.

The rain poured down one Sunday morning, splashing heavily on the tin of
the oft-mended roof, hurling itself noisily through the trees. The
doctor sat in his revolving-chair before the desk in his study. His
yellow face was puckered; even the wrinkles seemed to wrinkle as he
whirled about every few moments and scowled through the trees at the
flood racing down the lawn to the lake. His thin mouth was a trifle
relaxed, his clothes hung loose upon him; but the eyes, black and sharp
as a ferret's, glittered undimmed.

He lifted a large bell that stood on the desk and rang it loudly. A
maid-servant appeared.

"Go and look at the barometer," he roared. "See if this damned rain
shows any sign of letting up."

The servant retired, reappeared, and announced that the barometer was
uncompromising.

"Well, see that the table is set for twenty, nevertheless; do you hear?
If they don't come I'll raise their rents. Send Miss Webster here."

His sister entered in a few moments. She was nearly his age, but her
faded face showed wrinkles only on the brow and about the eyes. It wore
a look of haunting youth; the expression of a