I sobered down to a walk, and together we slipped behind a century-old lilac bush at the corner of the house, and sought the front of the dwelling unobserved. The house was set with its side to the road, about one hundred feet into the lot. A long ell ran out behind, evidently containing the kitchen and then the sheds and outhouses. The side door, on a grape-shadowed porch, was in this ell, facing the barn across the way. The main body of the dwelling was the traditional, simple block, with a fine old doorway, composed of simple Doric pilasters supporting a hand-hewn broken pediment--now, alas! broken in more than an architectural sense. It was a typical house of the splendid carpenter-and-builder period of a century ago. This front door faced into an aged and now sadly dilapidated orchard. Once there had been a path to the road, but this was now overgrown, and the doorsteps had rotted away. The orchard ran down a slope of perhaps half an acre to the ferny tangle of the brook bed. Beyond that was a bordering line of ash-leaf maples, evidently marking the other road out of which we had turned. The winters had racked the poor old orchard, and great limbs lay on the ground. What remained were bristling with suckers. The sills of the house were still hidden under banks of leaves, held in place by boards, to keep out the winter cold. There were no curtains in the windows, nor much sign of furniture within. From this view the old house looked abandoned. It had evidently not been painted for twenty years. But, as I stood before the battered doorway and looked down through the storm-racked orchard to the brook, I had a sudden vision of pink trees abloom above a lawn, and through them the shimmer of a garden pool and the gleam of a marble bench or, maybe, a wooden bench painted white. On the whole, that would be more in keeping. This Thing called gardening had got hold of me already! I was planning for next year! "You could make a terrace out here, instead of a veranda," I was saying to the professor. "White wicker furniture on the grass before this Colonial doorway! It's ideal!" He smiled. "How about the plumbing?" he inquired. I waved away such matters, and we returned around the giant lilac tree to the side door, searching for Milton Noble. A bent old lady peered over her spectacles at us, and allowed Milt wuz out tew the barn. He was, standing in the door contemplating our car. "Good morning," said I. "Mornin'," said he, peering sharply at me with gray eyes that twinkled palely above a great tangle of white whisker. "A fine old house you have," I continued. "Hed first-growth timber when 'twas built. Why wouldn't it be?" He spat lazily, and wiped the back of his hand across his whiskers. "We hear you want to sell it, though?" My sentence was a question. "Dunno whar you heerd thet," he replied. "I hain't said I did." We mentioned the innkeeper's name. "Humph," said Milt, "Tom knows more about folks sometimes then they do."