son to the place on a high bluff overlooking a sheet
of ice, stretching away almost as far as I could see, which they told me
was Fourth Lake, to the house in which I was informed Doctor Rucker
lived--a small frame house among stocky, low burr oak trees, on which
the dead leaves still hung, giving forth a dreary hiss as the bitter
north wind blew through them.

I knocked at the door, and was answered by a red-haired young woman,
with a silly grin on her face, the smirk flanked on each side with
cork-screw curls which hung down over her bright blue dress; which, as I
could see, was pulled out at the seams under her round and shapely arms.
She put out a soft and plump hand to me, but I did not take it. She
looked in my face, and shrank back as if frightened.

"Where's Rucker?" I asked; but before I had finished the question he
came forward from the other room, clothed in dirty black broadcloth, his
patent-medicine-pedler's smile all over his face, with a soiled frilled
shirt showing back of his flowered vest, which was unbuttoned except at
the bottom, to show the nasty finery beneath. He had on a broad black
scarf filling the space between the points of his wide-open standing
collar, and sticking out on each side. I afterward recalled the
impression of a gold watch-chain, and a broad ring on his finger. He
was quite changed in outward appearance from the poverty-stricken skunk
I had once known; but was if anything more skunk-like than ever: yet I
had to look twice to be sure of him.

"I am exceedingly glad to see you in the flesh," said he, coming forward
with his hand stuck out--a hand which I stared at but never
touched--"exceedingly glad to see you, my young brother. I have had a
spiritual vision of you. Honor us by coming in by the fire!"

"Where's my mother?" I asked, still standing in the open door.

Rucker started at the sound of my voice, which had changed from the
boy's soprano into a deep bass--much deeper than it is now. It was the
hoarse croak of the hobbledehoy.

The young woman had shrunk back behind him now.

"Your mother?" said he, in a sort of panther-like purr. "A spirit has
been for three days seeking to speak to a lost child through my
daughter. Come in, and let us see. Let us see if my daughter can not
pierce the mysteries of the unseen in your case. Come in!"

The cold was blowing in at the open door, and his tone was a little like
that of a man who wants to say, but does not feel it wise to