en "Dutch" rocking-chair by a window
overlooking the garden. Her silk-shod feet rested neatly side by side
on a carpet-covered hassock, her back against a gay tapestried cushion.
Near her purred big Jim, a maltese rumoured to weigh fifteen pounds.
Above her twittered a canary.

And the interior of the house itself was in keeping. The low ceilings,
the slight irregularities of structure peculiar to the rather
rule-of-thumb methods of the earlier builders, the deep window
embrasures due to the thickness of the walls, the unexpected passages
leading to unsuspected rooms, and the fact that many of these apartments
were approached by a step or so up or a step or so down--these lent
to it a quaint, old-fashioned atmosphere enhanced further by the steel
engravings, the antique furnishings, the many-paned windows, and all
the belongings of old people who have passed from a previous generation
untouched by modern ideas.

To this house and these people Orde came direct from the greatness of
the wilderness and the ferocity of Hell's Half-Mile. Such contrasts were
possible even ten or fifteen years ago. The untamed country lay at the
doors of the most modern civilisation.

Newmark, reappearing one Sunday afternoon at the end of the two weeks,
was apparently bothered. He examined the Orde place for some moments;
walked on beyond it; finding nothing there, he returned, and after some
hesitation turned in up the tar sidewalk and pulled at the old-fashioned
wire bell-pull. Grandma Orde herself answered the door.

At sight of her fine features, her dainty lace cap and mitts, and the
stiffness of her rustling black silks, Newmark took off his gray felt
hat.

"Good-afternoon," said he. "Will you kindly tell me where Mr. Orde
lives?"

"This is Mr. Orde's," replied the little old lady.

"Pardon me," persisted Newmark, "I am looking for Mr. Jack Orde, and I
was directed here. I am sorry to have troubled you."

"Mr. Jack Orde lives here," returned Grandma Orde. "He is my son. Would
you like to see him?"

"If you please," assented Newmark gravely, his thin, shrewd face masking
itself with its usual expression of quizzical cynicism.

"Step this way, please, and I'll call him," requested his interlocutor,
standing aside from the doorway.

Newmark entered the cool, dusky interior, and was shown to the left into
a dim, long room. He perched on a mahogany chair, and had time to notice
the bookcases with the white owl atop, the old pia