I had satisfied myself that Mr. Barker was contenting himself
with attending to my business, and not endeavoring to force
himself into social relations with my tenants, I was anxious that
the postponement of my journey should be unknown to my friends
and acquaintances, and I was, therefore, very glad to see in a
newspaper, published on the afternoon of the day of my intended
departure, my name among the list of passengers who had sailed
upon the Mnemonic. For the first time I commended the
super-enterprise of a reporter who gave more attention to the
timeliness of his news than to its accuracy.

I was stopping at a New York hotel, but I did not wish to
stay there. Until I felt myself ready to start on my travels the
neighborhood of Boynton would suit me better than anywhere else.
I did not wish to go to the town itself, for Barker lived there,
and I knew many of the townspeople; but there were farmhouses not
far away where I might spend a week. After considering the
matter, I thought of something that might suit me. About three
miles from my house, on an unfrequented road, was a mill which
stood at the end of an extensive sheet of water, in reality a
mill-pond, but commonly called a lake. The miller, an old man,
had recently died, and his house near by was occupied by a
newcomer whom I had never seen. If I could get accommodations
there it would suit me exactly. I left the train two stations
below Boynton and walked over to the mill.

The country-folk in my neighborhood are always pleased to
take summer boarders if they can get them, and the miller and his
wife were glad to give me a room, not imagining that I was the
owner of a good house not far away. The place suited my