until I made out it was a whole house; and after that it
was not long before I guessed what had happened. It seemed a simpler
thing to me, you know, than it did to you, because I had often thought
about it, and probably you never had."

"You are right there," said I, earnestly. "It would have been
impossible for me to imagine such a thing."

"At first I thought there was nobody in the house," said she, "but when
I heard some one moving about, I came down to tell whoever had arrived
not to make a noise. I see," she added, with another of her smiles,
"that you think I am a very strange person not to be more flurried by
what has happened. But really I cannot think of anything else just
now, except what mother will say and do when she comes down and finds
you and your house here at the back door. I am very sure she will not
like it."

"Like it!" I exclaimed. "Who on earth could like it?"

"Please speak more gently," she said. "Mother is always a little
irritable when her night's rest has been broken, and I would not like
to have her wakened up suddenly now. But really, Mr. Warren, I haven't
the least idea in the world how she will take this thing. I must go in
and be with her when she wakes, so that I can explain just what has
happened."

"One moment," I said. "You know my name."

"Of course I know your name," she answered. "Could that house be up
there on the hillside for more than a year without my knowing who lived
in it?" With this she went indoors.

I could not help smiling when I thought of the young lady regretting
that there was no man in the house who might help me do something.
What could anybody do in a case like this? I turned and went into my
house. I entered the various rooms on the lower floor, and saw no
signs of any particular damage, except that everything movable in each
room was jumbled together against the front wall. But when I looked
out of the back door I found that the porch there was a good deal
wrecked, which I had not noticed before.

I went up-stairs, and found everything very much as it was below.
Nothing seemed to have been injured except the chimney and the porches.
I thanked my stars that I had used hard wood instead of mortar for the
ceilings of my rooms.

I was about to go into my bedroom, when I heard a woman scream, and of
course I hurried to the front. There on the back porch of her house
stood Mrs. Carson. She was a woman of middle age, and, as I glanced at