There were tears in her eyes, like shining splinters of glass. We heard footsteps on the pavement below, and men’s voices came up to the open window. The fellows had come home from the City. Nat did not seem to hear; he was devouring Minnie’s face line by line, looking at her in a dazed, silly way. “It is good of you to come,” he said at last, very simply and gratefully. “How did you find it? So few people--country people, you know--have heard of the Inn. It must seem a noisy, dirty place to you--there are blacks all down your nice white apron. But we won’t stay. You will show me the way back. It was very curious about that gate.” * * * * * Minnie looked very well in widows’ weeds--those fair, neat little women generally do. I always tried very hard to like Minnie. I admired her practical spirit. Practicality means money, and money means ease. She came knocking at my door three days after the funeral, and said beseechingly: “Come down with me on the tram to Stamford Hill.” We went. The trams were crowded, it was Saturday afternoon. We walked slowly along the row of villas in the blazing sun--the row where Nat had sworn he found the gray gate. “Poor old chap,” I said. “He wasn’t fit for this world. But what a gold mine there would have been in it!” “It was at this house he seemed to stop most,” she said. “I remember the India-rubber plant in the front window.” We stopped. There was an old, palsied sort of fellow tidying up the rockery. I spoke to him--don’t know why. “I suppose you remember this neighborhood before it was built on?” “When it was a one-eyed country place,” elaborated Minnie. He straightened his body on his spade, and looked at us, cunningly, like old people often do. An eager light came into his bleared eyes. It seemed to me the light of youth breaking uncannily through the crust of seventy years. He remembered--sure he did. He became suddenly voluble--talking more to himself than to us. “It’s a good many year since this ’ere part was open country. Ah! there was a gate on the common--hereabouts, as near as I can mind. A bit on was a bridge, stone one side and iron t’other. A man had to keep a sharp lookout if he come home full o’ liquor nights. The rail runs there now--they built a new ’un. There was a copse--Shannonses copse, I think they called it, but my memory aint what it was. You went over a stile. That was a rare place for coortin’”--he grinned, showing a toothless cavern, and he spluttered with merry memories as he rocked on the spade.