"Well, I _swan_!" was what she said, and I felt that she looked it. "Susan! Is that you?" came the voice again, hoarsely appealing. It was not the voice of any neighbor. I made sure I had never heard it before. I could have smiled to myself at the presumption of any man calling my Aunt by her first name, if I had not been too deeply mystified. "I've been directed here to find Miss Susan Pike," the man outside explained, between fresh coughings. "Well, then, mog your boots out of this as quick as ever you can!" my Aunt replied, with great promptitude. "You won't find her here!" "But I _have_ found her!" the stranger protested, with an accent of wearied deprecation. "Don't you know me, Susan? I am not strong, this cold air is very bad for me." "I say 'get out!'" my Aunt replied, sharply. Her tone was unrelenting enough, but I noted that she had tipped her head a little to one side, a clear sign to me that she was opening her mind to argument. I felt certain that presently I should see this man. And, sure enough, after some further parley, Susan went to the door, and, with a half-defiant gesture, knocked the hook up out of the staple. "Come along then, if you must!" she said, in scornful tones. Then she marched back till she stood beside me, angry resolution written all over her face and the cleaver in her hand. A tall, dark figure, opaque against a gleaming background of moonlight and snowlight, was what I for a moment saw in the frame of the open doorway. Then, as he entered, shut and hooked the door behind him, and stood looking in a dazed way over at our lamplit group, I saw that he was a slender, delicately featured man, with a long beard of yellowish brown and gentle eyes. He was clad as a soldier, heavy azure-hued caped overcoat and all, and I already knew enough of uniforms—cruel familiarity of my war-time infancy—to tell by his cap that he was an officer. He coughed again before a word was spoken He looked the last man in the world to go about routing up peaceful households of a winter's night. "Well, now—what is your business?" demanded Aunt Susan. She put her hand on my shoulder as she spoke, something I had never known her to do before. I felt confused under this novel caress, and it seemed only natural that the stranger, having studied my Aunt's face in a wistful way for a moment, should turn his gaze upon me. I was truly a remarkable object, with Aunt Susan's hand on my shoulder. "I could make no one hear at the other door. I saw the light through the window here, and came around," the stranger explained. He sent little straying glances at the remains of the pig and at the weapon my Aunt held at her side, but for the most part looked steadily at me. "That doesn't matter," said Aunt Susan, coldly. "What do you want, now that you _are_ here? Why did you come at all? What business had you to think that I ever wanted to lay eyes on you again? How could you have the courage to show your face here—in _my_ house?"