There was the little gray cottage, with its last year’s vines about it, a withered spray here and there waving feebly as the soft April air caught it and tossed it to and fro.  No sign of life about the cottage—­doors and windows tight shut and barred.  Only the little gate swung open, but that might have been the wind.  I stepped up on the porch.  No sound save the echo of my steps and the knocking of my heart.  I rang the bell.  It pealed violently, but there were no answering sounds:  nothing stirred.

I rang again, more gently, and waited, looking along the little path to the gate.  There was snow, the winter’s snow, lingering about the roots of the old elm, the one elm tree that overhung the cottage.  Last winter’s snow lying there, and of the people who had lived in the house, and made it warm and bright, not a footprint, not a trace!

Again I rang, and this time I heard footsteps coming round the corner of the house.  I sat down on the rustic bench by the door.  If it had been Bessie’s self, I could not have stirred, I was so chilled, so awed by the blank silence.  A brown sun-bonnet, surmounting a tall, gaunt figure, came in sight.

“What is it?” asked the owner of the sun-bonnet in a quick, sharp voice that seemed the prelude to “Don’t want any.”

“Where are Mrs. Sloman and Miss Stewart?  Are they not in Lenox?”

“Miss’ Sloman, she’s away to Minnarsoter:  ben thar’ all winter for her health.  She don’t cal’late to be home afore June.”

“And Miss Stewart?—­is she with her?”

“Miss Stewart?  I dunno,” said the woman, with a strange look about the corners of her mouth.  “I dunno:  I never see her; and the family was all away afore I came here to take charge.  They left the kitchen-end open for me; and my sister-in-law—­that’s Hiram Splinter’s wife—­she made all the ’rangements.  But I did hear,” hesitating a moment, “as how Bessie Stewart was away to Shaker Village; and some does say”—­a portentous pause and clearing of her throat—­“that she’s jined.”

“Joined—­what?” I asked, all in a mist of impatience and perplexity.

“Jined the Shakers.”

“Nonsense!” I said, recovering my breath angrily.  “Where is this Hiram’s wife?  Let me see her.”

“In the back lot—­there where you see the yaller house where the chimney’s smoking.  That’s Hiram’s house.  He has charge of the Gold property on the hill.  Won’t you come in and warm yourself by the fire in the kitchen?  I was away to the next neighbor’s, and I was sure I hear our bell a-ringin’.  Did you hev’ to ring long?”

But I was away, striding over the cabbage-patch and climbing the worm-fence that shut in the estate of Hiram.  Some wretched mistake:  the woman does not know what she’s talking about.  These Splinters! they seem to have had some communication with Mrs. Sloman:  they will know.

Mrs. Splinter, a neat, bright-eyed woman of about twenty-five, opened the door at my somewhat peremptory knock.  I recollected her in a moment as a familiar face—­some laundress or auxiliary of the Sloman family in some way; and she seemed to recognize me as well:  “Why! it’s Mr. Munro!  Walk in, sir, and sit down,” dusting off a chair with her apron as she spoke.