“Why is that?”

“Well, the brothers-in-law never got on very well together in the old days, an’ far as I know Miss Eve never saw Ed except, perhaps, when they were both babies.  Ed went away to school, winters down to Boston, to a school of tech—­tech—­well, a place where they taught him engineerin’ an’ minin’ an’ such.  Summers he worked in a mill over to Lansing.”

“Is Miss Walton well off?”

“Only tolerable, I guess.  She’s got that house and what little money was saved out of her father’s smash-up.”

“Where does she live when she’s not here, Mr. Prout?”

“New York.  She does some sort of writing work, like her father.  Inherited some of his genius, I guess likely.”

Later Wade walked leisurely back to the cottage.  The afternoon sunlight lay in golden ribbons across the deserted street.  Up in the high elms the robins were swaying and singing.  An ancient buggy crawled past him and here and there an open window framed a housewife busy with her needle.  But save for these signs of life, he reflected, he might be walking through the original Deserted Village.  Come to think of it, Craig’s Camp was a busy metropolis compared to Eden Village, only—­Wade paused in front of his garden hedge and peered pleasurably up into the leafy golden mists above him—­only for some reason the absence of human beings didn’t make for loneliness here.  Nature was more friendly.  There was jovial comradeship in every mellow note that floated down to him from the happy songsters up there.

  “’The cheerful birds of sundry kind
  Do sweet music to delight his mind.’”

Wade swung around with a start and found himself looking over the hedge-top into a smiling, ruddy, gold-spectacled countenance.

“Spenser, I think, sir,” continued the stranger, “but I’ll not he certain.  Perhaps you recall the lines?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” replied Wade, passing through the gateway.

“No?  But like enough the poets aren’t as much to a busy, practical man like you, Mr. Herrick, as they are to me.  Even I don’t find as much time to devote to them as I’d like, however.  But I haven’t introduced myself nor explained my presence in your garden.  My name is Crimmins, Doctor Crimmins.”

“Glad to know you, Doctor,” replied Wade, as they shook hands.  “It was friendly of you to call, sir.”

The Doctor tucked his gold-headed cane under his arm and thrust his hands into the pockets of his slate-colored trousers, a proceeding which brought to view the worn satin lining of the old black frock-coat.

“Wait until you know us better, sir, and you’ll not speak of it as kindness.  Why, ’tis a positive pleasure, a veritable debauch of excitement, Mr. Herrick, to greet a newcomer to our mislaid village!  The kindness is on your side, sir, for dropping down upon us like—­like—­”

“A bolt from the blue,” suggested Wade.

“Like a dispensation of Providence, sir.”