"How did you pass the night?" was Mr. Trohm's first question. "I hope in all due peace and quiet." "Thank you," I returned, not seeing why I should increase his anxiety in my regard. "I have nothing to complain of. I had a dream; but dreams are to be expected where one has to pass a half-dozen empty rooms to one's apartment." He could not restrain his curiosity. "A dream!" he repeated. "I do not believe in sleep that is broken by dreams, unless they are of the most cheerful sort possible. And I judge from what you say that yours were not cheerful." I wanted to confide in him. I felt that in a way he had a right to know what had happened to me, or what I thought had happened to me, under this roof. And yet I did not speak. What I could tell would sound so puerile in the broad sunshine that enveloped us. I merely remarked that cheerfulness was not to be expected in a domicile so given over to the ravages of time, and then with that lightness and versatility which characterize me under certain exigencies, I introduced a topic we could discuss without any embarrassment to himself or me. "Do you see Mother Jane over there?" I asked. "I had some talk with her yesterday. She seems like a harmless imbecile." "Very harmless," he acquiesced; "her only fault is greed; that is insatiable. Yet it is not strong enough to take her a quarter of a mile from this place. Nothing could do that, I think. She believes that her daughter Lizzie is still alive and will come back to the hut some day. It's very sad when you think that the girl's dead, and has been dead nearly forty years." "Why does she harp on numbers?" I asked. "I heard her mutter certain ones over and over." "That is a mystery none of us have ever been able to solve," said he. "Possibly she has no reason for it. The vagaries of the witless are often quite unaccountable." He remained looking at me long after he had finished speaking, not, I felt sure, from any connection he found between what he had just said and anything to be observed in me, but from--Well, I was glad that I had been carefully trained in my youth to pay the greatest attention to my morning toilets. Any woman can look well at night and many women in the flush of a bright afternoon, but the woman who looks well in the morning needs not always to be young to attract the appreciative gaze of a man of real penetration. Mr. Trohm was such a man, and I did not begrudge him the pleasure he showed in my neat gray silk and carefully adjusted collar. But he said nothing, and a short silence ensued, which was perhaps more of a compliment than otherwise. Then he uttered a short sigh and lifted the reins. "If only I were not debarred from entering," he smiled, with a short gesture toward the house. I did not answer. Even I understand that on occasion the tongue plays but a sorry part in interviews of this nature.