hey opened the front door. Roses,
looking in the back door, across a bare, wide stretch of hall, smiled
at them. The sunlight fell everywhere in clear squares on the bare
floors. It brightened the big kitchen, and glinted in the pantry, still
faintly redolent of apples stored on shelves. It crept into the attic,
and touched the scored casement where years ago a dozen children had
recorded their heights and ages.

Margaret and John came out on the porch again, and she turned to him
with brimming eyes. It suddenly swept over her, with a thankfulness too
deep for realization, that this would be her world. She would sit on
this wide porch, waiting for him in the summer afternoons; she would go
about from room to room on the happy, commonplace journeys of
house-keeping; would keep the fire blazing against John's return. And
in the years to come perhaps there would be other voices about the old
house; there would be little shining heads to keep the sunlight always
there.

"Well, Margaret, do you like it?" said John, his arm about her, his
face radiant with pride and happiness.

"Like it!" said Margaret. "Why, it's home!"

IV

So the Kirbys disappeared from the world. Sometimes a newcomer at
Margaret's club would ask about the great portrait that hung over the
library fireplace--the portrait of a cold-eyed woman with beautiful
pearls about her beautiful throat. Then the history of poor, dear
Margaret Kirby would be reviewed--its triumphs, its glories, Margaret's
brilliant marriage, her beauty, her wit. These only led to the final
tragic scenes that had ended it all.

"And now she is grubbing away dear knows where!" her biographer would
say carelessly. "Absolutely, they might as well be buried!"

But about seven years after the Kirbys' disappearance, it happened that
four of Margaret's old intimates--the T. Illington Frarys and the
Josiah Dunnings--were taking a little motor trip in the Dunnings' big
car, through the northern part of the State. Just outside the little
village of Applebridge, something mysterious and annoying happened to
the car, which stopped short, and after some discussion it was decided
that the ladies should wait therein, while the men walked back in
search of help.

Mrs. Dunning and Mrs. Frary, settling themselves comfortably in the
tonneau for a long wait, puzzled themselves a little over the name of
Applebridge.

"I can just remember hearing of it," said Mrs. Dunning, sleepily, "but
wh