don’t you think?” Eve said. “It doesn’t look as if anybody lived here.”

It certainly didn’t! The big front yard was a perfect jungle of coarse grass and overgrown bushes and a generally deserted and gone-to-seed air hung about the whole place. But as we paused there a moment in the dusty road surveying it, there drifted out to us a wave of delicate perfume—the scent of flowering rose bushes in the sun—which was like a gesture of welcome.

Plain but substantial and built to last, as the early settlers were wont to build them, Craven House stood staunchly waiting for what fate held in store for it. The blinds were closed and the weatherbeaten shingles showed more than one gap where the wind and weather had made headway.

Suddenly there came over me that curious feeling one has at times of having been there before. “What’s the matter,” Eve inquired. “You look as if you expected to see a ghost or something!”

“Oh, nothing,” I returned hastily. “Come on, let’s go in. Is the gate locked?”

But Eve had not stopped to discover. Already as I spoke she was halfway over the wall. I followed her, dropping down into a thicket on the other side that fairly reached to my waist. I pointed silently to a dingy sign nailed to a tree. “No Trespassing,” it said.

“Oh, never mind,” said Eve lightly. “We’ve got to find the elusive Mr. Bangs, haven’t we?”

“But where is he? I don’t see him anywhere about. Maybe this isn’t the place after all,” I added, stooping to detach a rose branch from my stocking.

“It’s the place all right,” Eve returned. “Look, here’s a letterbox on the gatepost!” CRAVEN, I read the faded lettering. I wondered how many years it was since the mail carrier had left a letter there.

But Eve was now forging impatiently ahead. We crossed the yard and made our way through a forest of bushes around the corner of the house. In the rear, the ground sloped gradually down to what had once evidently been a quite elaborate garden. The outlines of paths and flower beds were still discernible. And half hidden among the bushes, I caught sight of a stone urn and of a blackened stone figure on a pedestal. And in the middle of it all, was the leaf-filled bowl of a fountain. The scent of honeysuckle mingled with that of the roses. How sweet it was, but sad too!

Suddenly I felt Eve gripping my elbow. “There he is!” she whispered. “Look! 

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