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“He’s got a fire!” she exclaimed loudly. “He’s there! My soul!” Until now the enormity of his offence had not penetrated her understanding. She had heard the fact without realizing it.

The house was ancient but trimly kept, and it stood within a spacious yard, now in billows and mounds of snow, under which lay the treasures inherited by the spring. The trellises on either side the door held the bare clinging arms of jessamine and rose, and the syringa and lilac bushes reached hardily above the snow. As Mrs. Wadleigh approached the door, she gave a rapid glance at the hop-pole in the garden, and wondered if its vine had stood the winter well. That was the third hop vine she’d had from Mirandy Pendleton! Mounting the front steps, she drew forth the key, and put it in the door. It turned readily enough, but though she gave more than one valiant push, the door itself did not yield. It was evidently barricaded.

“My soul!” said Mrs. Wadleigh.

She stepped back, to survey the possibilities of attack; but at that instant, glancing up at the window, she had Cyrus Pendleton’s own alarming experience. A head looked out at her, and was quickly withdrawn. It was dark, unkempt, and the movement was stealthy.

“That’s him!” said Mrs. Wadleigh, grimly, and returning to the charge, she knocked civilly at the door. No answer. Then she pushed again. It would not yield. She thought of the ladder in the barn, of the small cellar-window; vain hopes, both of them!

“Look here!” she called aloud. “You let me in! I’m the Widder Wadleigh! This is my own house, an’ I’m real tried stan’in’ round here, knockin’ at my own front door. You le’me in, or I shall git my death o’ cold!”

No answer; and then Mrs. Wadleigh, as she afterwards explained it, “got mad.” She ploughed her way round the side of the house,–not the side where she had seen the face, but by the “best-room” windows,–and stepped softly up to the back door. Cyrus Pendleton’s nail was no longer there. The man had easily pushed it out. She lifted the latch, and set her shoulder against the panel.

“If it’s the same old button, it’ll give,” she thought. And it did give. She walked steadily across the kitchen toward the clock-room, where the man that moment turned to confront her. He made a little run forward; then, seeing but one woman, he restrained himself. He was not over thirty years old; a tall, well-built fellow, with very black eyes and black hair. His features were good, but just now his mouth was set, and he looked darkly defiant. Of this, however, Mrs. Wadleigh did not think, for she was in a hot rage.

“What under the sun do you mean, lockin’ me out o’ my own house?” she cried, stretching out her reddened hands to the fire. “An’ potaters b’iled all over this good kitchen stove! I declare, this room’s a real hog’s nest, an’ I left it as neat as wax!”

Perhaps no man was ever more amazed than this invader. He stood staring at her in silence.

“Can’t you shet the door!” she inquired, fractiously, beginning to untie her cloud. “An’ put a stick o’ wood in the stove? If I don’t git het through, I shall ketch my death!”

He obeyed, seemingly from the inertia of utter surprise. Midway in the act of lifting the stove-cover, he glanced at her in sharp, suspicion.

“Where’s the rest?” he asked, savagely. “You ain’t alone?”

“Well, I guess I’m alone!” returned Mrs. Wadleigh, drawing off her icy stocking-feet, “an’ walked all the way from Cyrus Pendleton’s! There ain’t nobody likely to be round,” she continued, with grim humor. “I never knew ’twas such a God-forsaken hole, till I’d been away an’ come back to ‘t. No, you needn’t be scairt! The road ain’t broke out, an’ if ’twas, we shouldn’t have no callers to-day. It’s got round there’s a man here, an’ I’ll warrant the selec’men are all sick abed with colds. But there!” she added, presently, as the soothing warmth of her own kitchen stove began to penetrate, “I dunno’s I oughter call it a Godforsaken place. I’m kind o’ glad to git back.”