Then she spied a light burning in the last of the houses. She wondered if she had imagined “until it was better than real,” a favorite experience. But as she came closer, she saw several lights and unmistakable signs of long-accustomed habitation. “This was the loveliest house of all,” she thought mournfully, “and it had to be lived in!” Yet this house betrayed signs of decay; the shutters on one side were fastened tightly and bricks dislodged from an unused chimney. Thurley could not refrain from taking an extra peek. She made her way to the side and crept up the steps gently to push at the carved old door with its tarnished knocker. It opened! Taut with excitement and fearless, Thurley felt that she ought to repeat a charm to save herself from being changed into a mouse or a rubber plant or some such helpless creation. Inside the house burned a jewelled lamp; bulky objects were shrouded with covers. The boards creaked under her sturdy feet as she tiptoed about. A musty smell pervaded everything, and there were several doors, one of which she was about to open when a voice from the stairway made her halt. “Ali Baba, it isn’t four o’clock. How dare you come inside?” said the voice. Looking up, Thurley saw a bent-over lady in an old black dress, her yellowed fingers shining with rings as they clutched the banister. Her thin, pointed face with its restless eyes was looking over towards the opened door; she had not spied Thurley. “Close that door, you stupid Ali Baba; never dare to come here again—where are you? Why”—this with a hysterical scream—“it’s a child—a _child_—” and the little old lady began running down the stairs, beating her hands in the air, as if trying to strike at Thurley. Thurley turned, throwing back her head in defiance and calling out, “Lock your doors, if you don’t want company,” making a hasty retreat at the same time. Racing down the path, Thurley came into collision with Ali Baba, who was on his way to hitch Melba to the coupé. “For cat’s sake, where do you come from?” he demanded, holding Thurley by her arm. Thurley, making sure the door of the house had closed and the little old lady vanished, whispered, “I thought I’d have a look, so I went inside and some one came down the stairs and said, ‘Ali Baba, it isn’t four o’clock!’—and when she saw me, she was cross.” Ali Baba dropped her arm. “Have you been _inside_ that house?” Thurley nodded. “Just in the hallway—she found me there.” “Land sakes and Mrs. Davis,” Ali Baba said, smiling in spite of himself. “I guess you’ve done what no other kid in the Corners has ever dared to try. But don’t do it again—children should not be seen nor heard, according to Miss Abby,” and he brushed by her on his way to the barn. Thurley was not satisfied with this answer. She went back to the Corners to find Philena’s pale face pressed against the window glass watching for her missionary partner’s tardy appearance.