It looked like a house where there were a grandfather and a grandmother; where holidays were warmly kept; where there were boisterous family reunions to which uncles and aunts, who had been born there, would return from no matter what distances; a house where big turkeys would be on the table often; where one called “the hired man” (and named either Abner or Ole) would crack walnuts upon a flat-iron clutched between his knees on the back porch; it looked like a house where they played charades; where there would be long streamers of evergreen and dozens of wreaths of holly at Christmas-time; where there were tearful, happy weddings and great throwings of rice after little brides, from the broad front steps: in a word, it was the sort of a house to make the hearts of spinsters and bachelors very lonely and wistful--and that is about as near as I can come to my reason for thinking it the finest house in Wainwright. The moon hung kindly above its level roof in the silence of that October morning, as I checked my gait to loiter along the picket fence; but suddenly the house showed a light of its own. The spurt of a match took my eye to one of the upper windows, then a steadier glow of orange told me that a lamp was lighted. The window was opened, and a man looked out and whistled loudly. I stopped, thinking that he meant to attract my attention; that something might be wrong; that perhaps some one was needed to go for a doctor. My mistake was immediately evident, however; I stood in the shadow of the trees bordering the sidewalk, and the man at the window had not seen me. “Boy! Boy!” he called, softly. “Where are you, Simpledoria?” He leaned from the window, looking downward. “Why, THERE you are!” he exclaimed, and turned to address some invisible person within the room. “He's right there, underneath the window. I'll bring him up.” He leaned out again. “Wait there, Simpledoria!” he called. “I'll be down in a jiffy and let you in.” Puzzled, I stared at the vacant lawn before me. The clear moonlight revealed it brightly, and it was empty of any living presence; there were no bushes nor shrubberies--nor even shadows--that could have been mistaken for a boy, if “Simpledoria” WAS a boy. There was no dog in sight; there was no cat; there was nothing beneath the window except thick, close-cropped grass. A light shone in the hallway behind the broad front doors; one of these was opened, and revealed in silhouette the tall, thin figure of a man in a long, old-fashioned dressing-gown. “Simpledoria,” he said, addressing the night air with considerable severity, “I don't know what to make of you. You might have caught your death of cold, roving out at such an hour. But there,” he continued, more indulgently; “wipe your feet on the mat and come in. You're safe NOW!” He closed the door, and I heard him call to some one up-stairs, as he rearranged the fastenings: “Simpledoria is all right--only a little chilled. I'll bring him up to your fire.”