Her bewilderment was complete: the more she wished to appear to
understand him the more unintelligible his remarks became. He reminded
her of the gentleman who had "explained" the pictures at Nettleton, and
the weight of her ignorance settled down on her again like a pall.

"I mean, I can't see that you have any books on the old houses about
here. I suppose, for that matter, this part of the country hasn't been
much explored. They all go on doing Plymouth and Salem. So stupid. My
cousin's house, now, is remarkable. This place must have had a past--it
must have been more of a place once." He stopped short, with the blush
of a shy man who overhears himself, and fears he has been voluble. "I'm
an architect, you see, and I'm hunting up old houses in these parts."

She stared. "Old houses? Everything's old in North Dormer, isn't it? The
folks are, anyhow."

He laughed, and wandered away again.

"Haven't you any kind of a history of the place? I think there was one
written about 1840: a book or pamphlet about its first settlement," he
presently said from the farther end of the room.

She pressed her crochet hook against her lip and pondered. There was
such a work, she knew: "North Dormer and the Early Townships of Eagle
County." She had a special grudge against it because it was a limp
weakly book that was always either falling off the shelf or slipping
back and disappearing if one squeezed it in between sustaining volumes.
She remembered, the last time she had picked it up, wondering how anyone
could have taken the trouble to write a book about North Dormer and its