It was odious on account of the presence of a stranger who had appeared in Far Edgerley three weeks before, a stranger who had made his way into society there with so much rapidity and success that he had now penetrated even the exclusive barriers of the Farms. But this phraseology was Miss Carroll's. In reality, the stranger's "way" had not been made by any effort of his own, but rather by his manners and appearance, which were original, and more especially by a gift for which nature was responsible, not himself. And as to "penetrating the barriers" of the Farms, he had not shown any especial interest in that old-fashioned mansion, and now that he was actually there, and at one of the receptions, too, he seemed not impressed by his good fortune, but wandered about rather restlessly, and yawned a good deal in corners. These little ways of his, however, were considered to belong to the "fantasies of genius;" Madam Carroll herself had so characterized them. The stranger had, indeed, unlimited genius, if signs of this kind were to be taken as evidences of it; he interrupted people in the middle of their sentences; he left them abruptly while they were still talking to him; he yawned (as has already been mentioned), and not always in corners; he went to see the persons he fancied, whether they had asked him to do so or not; he never dreamed of going to see the persons he did not fancy, no matter how many times they had invited him. He had a liking for flower-gardens, and had been discovered more than once, soon after his arrival, sitting in honeysuckle arbors which the owners had supposed were for their own private enjoyment. When found, he had not apologized; he had complimented the owners upon their honeysuckles. Strangers were so rare in Far Edgerley--high, ancient little village in the mountains, far from railways, unmentioned in guide-books--that this admirer of flower-gardens was known by sight through all the town before he had been two days in the place. He was named Dupont, and he was staying at the village inn, the Washington Hotel--an old red brick structure, whose sign, a weather-beaten portrait of the Father of his Country, crowned the top of a thick blue pole set out in the middle of Edgerley Street. He was apparently about twenty-eight or thirty years of age, tall, slender, carelessly dressed, yet possessing, too, some picturesque articles of attire to which Far Edgerley was not accustomed; notably, low shoes with red silk stockings above them, and a red silk handkerchief to match the stockings peeping from the breast pocket of the coat; a cream-colored umbrella lined with red silk; a quantity of cream-colored gauze wound round a straw hat.