“That’s flattering, Doctor.  Won’t you come in?”

“Just for a moment.”  At the sitting-room door the Doctor paused.  “Well! well!” he exclaimed, reverently under his breath.  “Nothing changed!  It’s ten years ago since I stood here, Mr. Herrick.  Dear me!  A fine Christian woman she was, sir.  Well!  Well!  ‘Time rolls his ceaseless course.’  Bless me, I believe I’m getting old!” And the Doctor turned his twinkling gray eyes on Wade with smiling dismay.

“Try the rocking chair, Doctor Crimmins.  Let me take your hat and cane.”

“No, no, I’ll just lay them here beside me.  I see you’ve chosen the best room for your chamber, sir.  You’re not one of us, Mr. Herrick, that’s evident.  Here we make the best room into a parlor, the next into a sitting-room, the next into a spare room and sleep in what’s left.  We take good care of our souls and let our bodies get along as best they may.  You, I take it, are a Southron.”

“From Virginia, Doctor, and, although I’ve been in the West for some six years, I hope I haven’t entirely forgotten Southern hospitality.  Unfortunately my sideboard isn’t stocked yet, and all the hospitality I can offer is here.”  He indicated his flask.

“H’m,” said the Doctor, placing his finger-tips together and eying the temptation over his spectacles.  “I believe I’ve heard that it is an insult to refuse Southern hospitality.  But just a moment, Mr. Herrick.”  He arose and laid a restraining hand on.  Wade’s arm.  “Let’s not fly in the face of Providence, sir.”  He guided his host into the dining-room and softly closed the door, cutting off the view from the front window.  Then he drew a chair up to the table and settled himself comfortably.  “We are a censorious people, Mr. Herrick.”

“As bad as that, is it?” laughed Wade as he placed glasses on the cloth and brought water from the kitchen.

“We are strictly abstemious in Eden Village,” replied the Doctor, gravely, “and only drink in dark corners.  Your very good health, sir.  May your visit to our Edenic solitude prove pleasant.”

“To our better acquaintance, Doctor.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you.  Ha!  H’m!” And the Doctor smacked his lips with relish, wiped them carefully on his handkerchief and led the way back to the sitting-room.

“And now, Mr. Herrick, to come to the second object of my call, the first being to extend you a welcome.  Zenas—­I refer to our worthy Merchant Prince, Mr. Zenas Prout—­Zenas informed me last evening that you had been a close friend of Ed Craig’s, had, in fact, been in partnership with him in some Western mining-enterprise; that Ed had died and that you had come into his property.  That is correct?”

“Quite, sir.”

“I brought him into the world.  I’m sorry to hear of his death.  Well, well!  ’Our birth is nothing but our death begun, as tapers waste that instant they take fire.’  Young’s ‘Night Thoughts,’ Mr. Herrick.  Full of beautiful lines, sir.”  The Doctor paused a moment while he cleaned his spectacles with a corner of his coat.  “Let me see; ah, yes.  I wonder if you know that you have next door to you Ed’s only surviving near relative?”