r ago, that
Harriet came up the road bearing the news which, beyond a doubt, placed
the present incumbent in office; and has served to keep her there,
despite the efforts in certain quarters, which shall be nameless, to use
that pernicious instrument of radicalism, the recall.

I can always tell when Harriet brings important news. She has a slightly
quicker step, carries her head a little more firmly, and when she speaks
impresses her message upon me with a lowered voice. When Harriet looks
at me severely and drops down an octave I prepare for the worst.

"David," she said, "Mary Starkweather has gone to live in the barn!"

"In the _barn_!"

"In the barn."

I don't know quite why it is, but I dislike being surprised, and do my
best to cover it up, and, besides, I have always liked Mary
Starkweather. So I remarked, as casually as I could:

"Why not? It's a perfectly good barn."

"David Grayson!"

"Well, it is. It's a better building to-day than many of the people of
this town live in. Why shouldn't Mary Starkweather live in the barn if
she wants to? It's her barn."

"But, _David_--there are her children--and her husband!"

"There always are, when anybody wants to live in a barn."

"I shall not talk with you any more," said Harriet, "until you can be
serious."

I had my punishment, as I richly deserved to have, in the gnawing of
unsatisfied curiosity, which is almost as distressing as a troubled
conscience.

Within the next few days, I remember, I heard the great news buzzing
everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted
for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, our
sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary
Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country,
and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books,
to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children's maid
going to live in her barn! I leave it to you if there was not a valid
reason for our commotion.

It must have been two weeks later that I went to town by the upper hill
road in order to pass the Starkweather place. It is a fine old estate,
the buildings, except the barn, set well back from the road with a
spacious garden near them, and pleasant fields stretching away on every
hand. As I skirted the shoulder of the hill I looked eagerly for the
first glimpse of the barn. I confess that I had woven a thousand stories