Must lave me pick to resht a bit, sence Chairley Burke's in
town.


"Before we turn back, now," said the smiling
Major, as I stood lingering over the indefinable
humor of the last refrain, "before we turn back I
want to show you something eminently characteristic.
Come this way a half-dozen steps."

As he spoke I looked up, first to observe that we
had paused before a handsome square brick residence,
centering a beautiful smooth lawn, its emerald
only littered with the light gold of the earliest
autumn leaves. On either side of the trim walk
that led up from the gate to the carved stone
ballusters of the broad piazza, with its empty easy
chairs, were graceful vases, frothing over with
late blossoms, and wreathed with laurel-looking
vines; and, luxuriantly lacing the border of the
pave that turned the farther corner of the house,
blue, white and crimson, pink and violet, went
fading away in perspective as my gaze followed the
gesture of the Major's.

"Here, come a little farther. Now do you see
that man there?"

Yes, I could make out a figure in the deepening
dusk--the figure of a man on the back stoop--a