Elizabeth took a deep breath. For a few minutes she had forgotten the cloud which hung over her. Then she told her story, Herbert’s long illness, the advice of the doctors, their discovery that their mother still owned her father’s property in Pennsylvania, and their journey East. “We settled down here and made a garden, and then we started out to sell our things. I believe in being friendly so I told who I was. Immediately people seemed to be repelled, they treated me unkindly. Presently I found out that it was because of my grandfather and something he was supposed to have done.” The old lady looked at her intently. Her hands had ceased to work and she frowned heavily. “What is your name?” Elizabeth went over the old formula. “My name is Elizabeth Scott; my grandfather’s name was John Baring.” The old lady responded in deeds and not in words. She rose and peas and pan fell clattering to the floor. The cat, startled out of sleep, dashed away, and all that had seemed a moment ago so friendly and peaceful was now inimical and confused. “I can’t sit with a granddaughter of John Baring!” said the old lady. “You made a mistake to come back here! Why, you’re his image!” Elizabeth sat still. “Won’t you hear me till the end?” she asked. This melodramatic behavior was, she believed, sincere. She was all the more anxious, unpleasant as the situation was, to ask questions. “Well, what have you to say?” The old lady stood with her hand on the latch of the screen door, ready for instant flight. “After I had been treated so rudely, I determined to find out what was the matter, so I went to an old gentleman in Gettysburg, Colonel Thomas, and he told me about John Baring.” “He could tell you the truth! He was a soldier himself. He knows what John Baring did!” “Yes, he told me the truth, at least what seems like the truth. Then I came home. It’s very hard to learn suddenly that you are a descendant of a man whom his neighbors believe to be a traitor.” “He was a traitor!” cried the old lady. “There never was a worse traitor.” “When I came home, I went through the house, carefully, to see whether any papers belonging to him could have been stowed away and overlooked. I couldn’t accept this without doing something, could I?” The old lady’s hand dropped from the door-latch and she leaned against the wall, a sign of relenting in her eyes. “I didn’t find anything that referred directly to it,” went on Elizabeth, “but I did find some writing on one of the beams in the attic.” “What writing?” “It had nothing to do with the battle, but it had to do with John Baring. It said, ‘I have built this house the best I know. God bless those who go in and out.’ That didn’t look like the sentiment of a man who was a traitor, did it? So I thought I would try to see whether there were any persons who remembered him and who could tell me about him. Perhaps there is some mistake.”