at centre chimney from which the smoke was curling, with its
diamond-paned casements Insall had put into the tiny frames.

"What queer windows!" she said. "But they seem to go with the house,
beautifully."

"You think so?" His tone surprised her; it had a touch more of
earnestness than she had ever before detected. "They belong to that
type of house the old settlers brought the leaded glass with them. Some
people think they're cold, but I've arranged to make them fairly tight.
You see, I've tried to restore it as it must have been when it was
built."

"And these?" she asked, pointing to the millstones of different
diameters that made the steps leading down to the garden.

"Oh, that's an old custom, but they are nice," he agreed. "I'll just put
this precious manuscript inside and get my foot rule," he added, opening
the door, and she stood awaiting him on the threshold, confronted by the
steep little staircase that disappeared into the wall half way up.
At her left was the room where he worked, and which once had been
the farmhouse kitchen. She took a few steps into it, and while he was
searching in the table drawer she halted before the great chimney over
which, against the panel, an old bell-mouthed musket hung. Insall came
over beside her.

"Those were trees!" he said. "That panel's over four feet across, I
measured it once. I dare say the pine it was cut from grew right where
we are standing, before the land was cleared to build the house."

"But the gun?" she questioned. "You didn't have it the night we came to
supper."

"No, I ran across it at a sale in Boston. The old settler must have
owned one like that. I like to think of him, away off here in the
wilderness in those early days."

She thought of how Insall had made those early days live for her, in his
story of Basil Grelott. But to save her soul, when with such an opening,
she could not speak of it.

"He had to work pretty hard, of course," Insall continued, "but I dare
say he had a fairly happy life, no movies, no Sunday supplements, no
automobiles or gypsy moths. His only excitement was to trudge ten miles
to Dorset and listen to a three hour sermon on everlasting fire and
brimstone by a man who was supposed to know. No wonder he slept soundly
and lived to be over ninety!"

Insall was standing with his head thrown back, his eyes stilt seemingly
fixed on the musket that had suggested his remark--a pose eloquent, she
thought, of the mental and phy