from them into mine, like a benediction, as he gently set me on my feet. "Must you, Eve?"

"Yes," I answered, with a gulp that went all the way down to my feminine toes, as I glanced across the road at the grim, dark old pile that towered against the starlit sky. "I want to stay in my own house tonight--and--and I'm not afraid."

"You won't need to be frightened. I understand, I think--and here's your key, I always carry it in my pocket. Your Father's candle is on the mantel. You shall have to-night to yourself. Good-night, and bless your home-coming, dear!"

"Good-night," I answered as I turned away from his kind eyes quickly, to keep from clinging-to him with might and main, and crossed the road to my own gate. With my head up, and trying for the whistle, at least in my heart, I went quickly along the front walk with its rows of blush peonies, nodding along either edge. The two old purple lilacs beside the front steps have grown so large they seemed to be barring my way into my home with longing, sweet embraces, and a fragrant little climbing rose, that has rioted across the front door, ever since I could remember, bent down and left a kiss on my cheeks.

The warm, mellow old moon flooded a glow in front of me, through the big front door, as I opened it, and then hastened to pour into the wide windows as I threw back the shutters. Logs lay ready for lighting in the wide fireplace at the end of the long room, and Father's tobacco jar gleamed a reflected moonlight from its pewter sides from the tall mantel-shelf. The old hooks melted into the dusk of their cases along the wall, and the portrait of Grandfather Shelby lost its fierce gaze and became benign from its place between the windows. I was being welcomed to the home of my fathers, with a soft dusk that was as still and sweet as the grave. Sweet for those that want it; but I didn't. Suddenly, I thrilled as alive as any terror-stricken woman that ever found herself alone anywhere on any other edge of the world, and then as suddenly found myself in a complete condition of fright prostration, crouched on my own threshold. I was frightened at the dark, and could not even cry. Then almost immediately, while I crouched quivering in every nerve I seemed to hear a man's voice say comfortingly:

"You don't need to be frightened." Courageously I lifted my eyes and looked down between the old lilac bushes, and saw just what I expected I would, a tall, gray figure, pacing slowly up and down the road. Then it was that fear came into me, stiffened my muscles and strengthened 

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