Aunt Sabrina Puddlestone’s residence occupied an entire block of land in a part of Livermore where, some thirty years before, it had been the custom for families to set their big houses in the middle of a block, and feel, even then, just a bit crowded. Now, since the town had grown in other directions, many of these old residences still stood unchallenged in the midst of their wide lawns, although frequently the houses themselves were down-at-the-heels. Aunt Sabrina’s house, though, showed no signs of disrepair. It was large and square, two stories in height, with a little square box set atop, as though the builder had wondered how a third story would look and had set it there to give him an idea. The little box was called ‘The Tower’ and was a mass of narrow windows on all sides. There was something extremely, almost depressingly, respectable about the Puddlestone mansion. It was so uncompromisingly angular and unadorned and white, and the big downstair windows were so immaculate in their heavy white curtains, and the front door, with its fan-light and side-lights, looked down across the front lawn with such a suspicious air that――well, Tim, viewing it for the first time, regretted having originated the idea of the visit. A drive led from the street to the doorway and then curved back to the street again. Beside the carriage-way ran a narrow brick path for those afoot. Two stone urns, just a wee bit out of plumb, and a carriage-block adorned the grass before the house. Huge maples and oaks partly hid the old mansion, and at the back there was a veritable plantation of trees and shrubs, so overgrown and crowded that the late sunlight scarcely filtered through. Back there, too, near the house, was a long line of one-story structures; a stable, at one end, and then a carriage-house, and then an open woodshed, and then a poultry-house. As the three boys started up the gently ascending, curving walk to the front door, the westing sun sent long shafts of orange light through the maples and oaks and flashed ruddily against a corner window. But the shadows were black and there was a somber stillness about the place that impressed at least one of the visitors unpleasantly. Pud appeared to be unaffected and chattered without pause all the way to the entrance, pointing out this feature and that and recalling past adventures. Coincident with their arrival at the door, there came a long roll of distant thunder. In the west the sun was descending into a bank of sullen purple clouds, while northward a sudden flare of lightning showed. ‘Guess we’re going to be lucky to have a roof over us to-night,’ said Pud. ‘There’s a peach of a storm coming up.’