The prim white door, with its fan-light overhead and the discreetly veiled side-windows fantastically leaded, was opened by Abby, a sort of housekeeper, who had the air of being coeval with the house, if not with Boston itself. George always smiled inwardly at the look with which he was received by this primeval damsel, a look of virginal primness at the idea of allowing in the house a man who was professedly a suitor, and he declared to Alice that he was still, after long experience, a little afraid of Abby's regard. To-day her customary look vanished quickly, to give place to one more vivid and spontaneous. Abby put up a lean finger, mysteriously enjoining silence, and spoke instantly in a sibilant whisper. "Will you please come in here, sir, before you go upstairs?" she said. She waved her thin hand toward the little reception-room, and the doctor, in mild wonderment, obeyed the gesture and entered. Abby closed the door softly, and came toward him with an air of concern. "I must tell you, sir," the old servant said in a half voice, "a queer thing's come." "A queer thing's come," he repeated, leaning against the mantel. "Come from where?" "It's come, sir," repeated Abby, a certain relish of her mystery seeming to his ear to impart an unctuous flavor to her tone. "It's just come. Nobody knows where things come from, I guess." "Oh, you mean something's happened?" "Yes, sir; that's what I said." "But what is it?" "I don't know, sir; but it's queer." He looked at her wrinkled old face, where now the mouth was drawn in as if she had pulled up her lips with puckering-strings lest some secret escape. He smiled at her important manner, and, leaning his elbow on the mantel, prepared for the slow process of getting at what the woman really meant. It proved in the event less laborious than usual, and he reflected that the directness with which Abby gave her information was sufficient indication of the seriousness with which she regarded it. "Miss Alice ain't right, sir. She does what she don't know." "What do you mean?" he demanded, really startled. "She wrote a letter to you last night, and then instead of mailing it she cut it all up into teenty tonty pieces, postage stamp and all; and then said she did n't know who did it." Carroll stared at the woman. Whimsies and mysteries were alike so foreign to Alice that his first and natural thought was that Abby had lost her mind. "It's true, sir, every word," Abby insisted, answering his unspoken incredulity. "She did just 's I say." "If she said she did n't know who did it," the young man said sharply, "she did n't know." "Of course she did n't know. That 's what's queer." "But she could n't have done it herself." "Oh, but I saw her doing it, sir, and I wondered what was the matter with the letter; only I did n't notice the postage stamp, or I'd have spoken."