he found himself quite willing to
go), he tore up the will he had made. He now felt that there was no
necessity for proving his sanity.

MY UNWILLING NEIGHBOR

I was about twenty-five years old when I began life as the owner of a
vineyard in western Virginia. I bought a large tract of land, the
greater part of which lay upon the sloping side of one of the
foot-hills of the Blue Ridge, the exposure being that most favorable to
the growth of the vine. I am an enthusiastic lover of the country and
of country life, and believed that I should derive more pleasure as
well as profit from the culture of my far-stretching vineyard than I
would from ordinary farm operations.

I built myself a good house of moderate size upon a little plateau on
the higher part of my estate. Sitting in my porch, smoking my pipe
after the labors of the day, I could look down over my vineyard into a
beautiful valley, with here and there a little curling smoke arising
from some of the few dwellings which were scattered about among the
groves and spreading fields, and above this beauty I could imagine all
my hillside clothed in green and purple.

My family consisted of myself alone. It is true that I expected some
day that there would be others in my house besides myself, but I was
not ready for this yet.

During the summer I found it very pleasant to live by myself. It was a
novelty, and I could arrange and manage everything in my own fashion,
which was a pleasure I had not enjoyed when I lived in my father's
house. But when winter came I found it very lonely. Even my servants
lived in a cabin at some little distance, and there were many dark and
stormy evenings when the company even of a bore would have been welcome
to me. Sometimes I walked over to the town and visited my friends
there, but this was not feasible on stormy nights, and the winter
seemed to me a very long one.

But spring came, outdoor operations began, and for a few weeks I felt
again that I was all-sufficient for my own pleasure and comfort. Then
came a change. One of those seasons of bad and stormy weather which so
frequently follow an early spring settled down upon my spirits and my
hillside. It rained, it was cold, fierce winds blew, and I became more
anxious for somebody to talk to than I had been at any time during the
winter.

One night, when a very bad storm was raging, I went to bed early, and
as I lay awake I revolved in my mind a scheme of which