be here shortly, and it would be
annoying to have him ushered in on a shutter. We must establish a rule
that callers are not to be fired upon at the gate."

"I know why this is the land of the free and the home of the brave,"
laughed Alice. "One has to be brave to live here."

Antoine departed with a resentful twist of the shoulders, and I decided
to meet squarely the matter of the visitors who had so troubled him.

"Please don't be frightened," I said as lightly as possible, "but these
old fellows haven't enough to do, and they are full of apprehensions.
With nobody here to keep them busy it's remarkable they haven't found a
ghost."

"If they only would!" murmured Mrs. Farnsworth.

"No such luck! They have been alarmed by an agent of some sort who wants
to welcome you to America by selling you a piano on easy payments."

Antoine had been hovering inside, and my remark brought him to the
door.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Singleton, but that party is not an agent, but quite
different, sir. He came to the house, quite like a gentleman, several
times, and asked if Mrs. Bashford had arrived. He came in a big car, and
seemed disappointed, madame, that you were not here and not expected.
The second time he said he was just passing on his way to the city and
thought he would stop again. A very well-spoken gentleman, and we'd have
thought nothing of it except that a few days later I caught a man I was
sure was the same party, but dressed in rough clothes, sneaking across
the veranda right there where you're sitting. When I called to him he
ran as hard as he could, and Graves--he's the vegetable-gardener--saw
him leaving the property by the back way."

"It's hardly possible that a man who impressed you as a gentleman when
you saw him at the door should have returned in disguise and tried to
break into the house. The two things don't hang together, Antoine."

"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Farnsworth, "it would be so much more delightful if
that were true! Any one in disguise is bound to be interesting. A
disguise suggests most beautiful possibilities. And to be sought, asked
for by a stranger!"

I could not be sure in the dim light of the veranda, but I thought I
detected a white slipper cautiously reach out and touch a black one. At
any rate, Mrs. Farnsworth lapsed into silence.

"Thank you very much, Antoine," said Alice. "It is very proper for you
to tell me anything of any stranger on the property, but I see nothing
here to be ala