ply one had been left
unlocked. Nor did we notice that we were doing all the work until
Aubrey selected the back hall window as the loosest, and opening his
knife--the wickedest looking pocket-knife I ever saw, by the way--he
proceeded deftly to turn the lock of the window and then to raise it.

I was so proud of his cleverness that I turned to ensure the admiration
of Mr. Close also, but the look I encountered froze the smile on my
lips and the words on my tongue, for the good man was viewing both
Aubrey and me with the liveliest horror and distrust.

Aubrey turned also at my sudden silence, and the light dawned upon us
both in the same instant.

Mr. Close had the grace to look quite sheepish to see us both sit down
abruptly on the top step and shriek with laughter. But I am sure, in
my own mind, that he dismissed the idea of burglars in favour of
lunatics.

But Peach Orchard was well named, for the old house was set down in the
very midst of it. Trees were everywhere, and, indeed, they grew so
close to the house, and they were so tall, that we could not see the
house properly. The short winter afternoon was drawing to a close and
it looked for a moment as if we would have to come again, when on a
shelf, good Mr. Close, whose business instincts were keener than his
sense of humour, found an old lamp with about three inches of oil in
it. A feverish search for matches resulted in the discovery that his
match-box was empty, and Aubrey's held only one.

Right here, let me ask just one question of all the smokers all over
the world. Why is it, that, needing them more than you need anything
else on earth,--home or friends or wife or mother or money or position
or religion or your hope of heaven,--why is it that you never have any
matches?

Aubrey's one, which he had been saving, as he told me afterward, to
light a cigarette on the return drive, proved friendly, and the lamp
smoked instead. Armed with this rather unsatisfactory torch, we
explored, and as we went up and down, in and out of the queer old
place, built a hundred years ago (Mr. Close said!), we decided to take
it, and most unwisely said so, thereby paying, as usual, the top price
for something which we could have got at a bargain if we had waited.
But such is the perennial foolishness and precipitancy of the Jardines.

Evidently Mary had humoured our going out to Clovertown that afternoon
as one of our mad excursions only, and had not fathomed the p