says he. "That's the place Shorty McCabe's bought."

"Do tell!" says I. "Well, cart me out to the front gate and put me off."

It was a nice ride. If it had been a mile longer I'd had facts enough
for a town history. Drivin' a depot carriage was just a side issue with
that Primrose blossom. Conversin' was his long suit. He tore off
information by the yard, and slung it over the seat-back at me like one
of these megaphone lecturers on the rubber-neck wagons. Accordin' to
him, Aunt 'Melie had been a good deal of a she-hermit.

"Why," says he, "Major Curtis Binger told me himself that in the five
years he lived neighbors to her he hadn't seen her more'n once or twice.
They say she hadn't been out of her yard for ten years up to the time
she went abroad for her health and died of it."

"Anyone that could live in this town that long and not die, couldn't
have tried very hard," says I. "Who's this Major Binger?"

"Oh, he's a retired army officer, the major is; widower, with two
daughters," says he.

"Singletons?" says I.

"Yep, and likely to stay so," says he.

About then he turns in between a couple of fancy stone gate-posts,
twists around a cracked bluestone drive, and lands me at the front steps
of Nightingale Cottage. For the kind, it wa'n't so bad--one of those
squatty bay-windowed affairs, with a roof like a toboggan chute, a porch
that did almost a whole lap around outside, and a cobblestone chimney
that had vines growin' clear to the top. And sure enough, there was
Dennis Whaley with his rake, comin' as near a grin as he knew how.

Well, he has me in tow in about a minute, and I makes a personally
conducted tour of me estate. Say, all I thought I was gettin' was a
couple of buildin' lots; but I'll be staggered if there wa'n't a slice
of ground most as big as Madison Square Park, with trees, and shrubbery,
and posy beds, and dinky little paths loopin' the loop all around. Out
back was a stable and goosb'ry bushes and a truck garden.

"How's thim for cabbages?" says Dennis.

"They look more like boutonnieres," says I. But he goes on to tell as how
they'd just been set out and wouldn't be life-size till fall. Then he
shows the rows that he says was goin' to be praties and beans and so
on, and he's as proud of the whole shootin'-match as if he'd done a
miracle.

When we got around to the front again, where Dennis has laid out a pansy
harp, I sees a little gatherin' over in front of the cottage next door.
The