A long row of hemlocks and Norway spruce bordered the road, and, with the aid of a stone wall, shut off from the highway a prosperous-looking vegetable garden.  Farther along, a flower garden glowed in the fantastic coloring which gardens acquire when planted for the love of flowers rather than for definite artistic effects.  Farther still, two lilac bushes stood sentinel on either side of a gateway; and behind, a deep green lawn lay under the light, dappled shade of tall trees.  It was a lawn that spoke of many years of care; and in the middle of its velvet green, under the branches of two sheltering elms, stood the old red house.  It looked comfortable and secure, in its homely simplicity; something to depend on in the otherwise mutable scenes of life.  Aleck felt an instantaneous liking for it, and was glad that his errand, sad as it might possibly be, had yet led him thither.

Long French windows in the lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze.  As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck’s stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass.  It wasn’t a house to be hurried, that was plain.  After a wait of five or ten minutes Aleck was about to knock again, when a face appeared at one of the side-lights of the door.  Presently the door itself opened a few inches, and elderly spinsterhood, wrapped in severe inquiry, looked out at him.

“Can I see the lady, or either of the gentlemen, who recently arrived here from the yacht, the Jeanne D’Arc?”

Aleck’s voice and manner were friendly enough to disarm suspicion itself; Sallie Kingsbury looked at him for a full second.

“Come in.”

Aleck followed her into the wide, dim hall, and waited while she pulled down the shade of the sidelight which she had lifted for observation.  Then she opened a door on the right and said: 

“Set down in the parlor while I go and take my salt risin’s away from the stove.  I ain’t had time to call my soul my own since the folks came, what with callers at all times of the day.”

Sallie’s voice was not as inhospitable as her words.  She was mildly hurt and grieved, rather than offended.  She disappeared and presently came back with a white apron on in place of the colored gingham she had worn before; but it is doubtful if Aleck noticed this tribute to his sex.  Sallie looked withered and pinched, but more by nature and disposition than by age.  She stood with arms akimbo near the center-table, regarding Aleck with inquisitiveness not unmixed with liking.

“You can set down, sir,” she said politely, “but I don’t know as you can see any of the folks.  The man, he’s up-stairs sick, clean out of his head; and the young man, he’s nursing him.  Can’t leave him alone a minute, or he’d be up and getting out the window, f’rall I know.”