s hazel-brown and the
other a hazel-grey.

She looked at him, and it seemed to him as though, in the fearless
gravity of her regard, somewhere, somehow--perhaps in the curled corners
of her lips, perhaps in her pretty and unusual eyes--there lurked a
little demon of laughter. Yet it could not be so--there were only
serenity and a child's direct sweetness in her gaze.

"I suppose you have come to look at this old-time place?" she said.
"People often come. You are perfectly welcome."

And, as he made no answer:

"If you care to see the inside of the house I will be very glad to show
it to you," she added pleasantly.

"Is--is it _yours_?" he managed to say, "or--or your sister's?"

She smiled. "You mistake me for somebody else. I have no sister. This is
the old Brown place--a very, very old house. It belonged to my great
grandmother. If you are interested I will be glad to show you the
interior. I brought the key with me."

"But people--relatives of yours--are living there now," he stammered.

"Oh, no," she said, smiling, "the house is empty. We are thinking of
putting it in shape again. If you care to come in I can show you the
quaint old fireplaces and wainscoting--if you don't mind dust."

She mounted the step lightly and, fitting the key and unlocking the
door--which he thought he had left open--entered.

"Come in," she called to him in a friendly manner.

He crossed the threshold to her side and halted, stunned. An empty house,
silent, shadowy, desolate, confronted him.

The girl beside him shook out her skirts and glanced at her dusty gloves.

"A vacuum cleaner is what this place requires," she said. "But _isn't_ it
a quaint old house?"

He pressed his shaking hands to his closed eyes, then forced them to open
upon the terrible desolation where _she_ had stood a moment since--and
saw bare boards under foot, bare walls, cobwebs, dust.

The girl was tiptoeing around the four walls examining the condition of
the woodwork.

"It only needs electric lights and a furnace in the cellar and some
kalsomine and pretty wall paper----"

She turned to glance back at him, and stood so, regarding him with amused
curiosity--for he had dropped on his knees in the dust, groping in an odd
blind way for a flower that had just fallen from his coat.

"There are millions of them by the roadside," she said as he stumbled to
his feet and drew the frail blossom through his buttonhole with unsteady
fingers.

"Yes," he sa