their part Elizabeth and her mother had had the slope
beneath the Eyrie laid out in plots exactly alike, one for each guest,
and the question of ownership had been settled by drawing lots. Each
plot owner might plant and cultivate her own garden in her own way.
These ways differed widely, hence the varied color schemes and
diversifications of design noted by Sears on his first visit. The most
elaborate--not to say "whirliggy"--design was the product of Miss
Snowden's labor. The captain would have guessed it. The plot which
contained no flowers at all, but was thickly planted with beets, onions
and other vegetables, belonged to Esther Tidditt. He would have guessed
that, too.

He had stopped for an instant to inspect the plots, when he heard a
footstep. Looking up, he saw a man descending the slope along the path
by the Eyrie.

The man was a stranger, that was plain at first glance. The captain did
not know every one in Bayport, but he had at least a recognizing
acquaintance with most of the males, and this particular male was not
one of them. And Sears would have bet heavily that neither was he one of
the very few whom he did not know. He was not a Bayport citizen, he did
not look Bayport.

He was very tall and noticeably slim. He wore a silk hat what Bayport
still called a "beaver" in memory of the day's when such headpieces were
really covered with beaver fur. There was nothing unusual in this fact;
most of Bayport's prosperous citizens wore beavers on Sundays or for
dress up. But there was this of the unusual about this particular hat:
it had an air about it, a something which would have distinguished it
amid fifty Bayport tiles. And yet just what that something was Sears
Kendrick could not have told he could not have defined it, but he knew
it was there.

There was the same unusual something about the stranger's apparel in
general, and yet there was nothing loud about it or queer. He carried a
cane, but so did Captain Elkanah Wingate, for that matter, although only
on Sundays. Captain Elkanah, however, carried his as if it were a club,
or a scepter, or a--well, a marlinspike, perhaps. The stranger's cane
was a part of his arm, and when he twirled it the twirls were graceful
gestures, not vulgar flourishes.

Sears's reflections concerning the newcomer were by no means as
analytical as this, of course. His first impressions were those of one
coming upon a beautiful work of art, a general wonder and admiration,