The editor stared at him! Burnt down it certainly had been, but by no means recently. Grasses were already springing up from the charred beams in the cellar, vines were trailing over the fallen chimneys, excavations, already old, had been made among the ruins. “When were you here last?” the editor asked abruptly. “Five years ago,” said the stranger abstractedly. “Five years!--and you knew nothing of THIS?” “No. I was in Tahiti, Australia, Japan, and China all the time.” “And you never heard from home?” “No. You see I quo'led with the old man, and ran away.” “And you didn't write to tell them you were coming?” “No.” He hesitated, and then added: “Never thought o' coming till I saw YOU.” “Me!” “Yes; you and--the high water.” “Do you mean to say,” said the young editor sharply, “that you brought ME--an utter stranger to you--out of that coach to claim the hospitality of a father you had quarreled with--hadn't seen for five years and didn't know if he would receive you?” “Yes,--you see that's just WHY I did it. You see, I reckoned my chances would be better to see him along with a cheerful, chipper fellow like you. I didn't, of course, kalkilate on this,” he added, pointing dejectedly to the ruins. The editor gasped; then a sudden conception of the unrivaled absurdity of the situation flashed upon him,--of his passively following the amiable idiot at his side in order to contemplate, by the falling rain and lonely night, a heap of sodden ruins, while the coach was speeding to Summit Springs and shelter, and, above all, the reason WHY he was invited,--until, putting down his bag, he leaned upon his stick, and laughed until the tears came to his eyes. At which his companion visibly brightened. “I told you so,” he said cheerfully; “I knew you'd be able to take it--and the old man--in THAT WAY, and that would have fetched him round.” “For Heaven's sake! don't talk any more,” said the editor, wiping his eyes, “but try to remember if you ever had any neighbors about here where we can stay tonight. We can't walk to Summit Springs, and we can't camp out on these ruins.” “There didn't use to be anybody nearer than the Springs.” “But that was five years ago, you say,” said the editor impatiently; “and although your father probably moved away after the house burned down, the country's been thickly settled since then. That field has been lately planted. There must be another house beyond. Let's follow the trail a little farther.” They tramped along in silence, this time the editor leading. Presently he stopped. “There's a house--in there--among the trees,” he said, pointing. “Whose is it?” The stranger shook his head dubiously. Although apparently unaffected by any sentimental consideration of his father's misfortune, the spectacle of the blackened ruins of the homestead had evidently shaken his preconceived plans. “It wasn't there in MY time,” he said musingly.