The rain had ceased, and from the outside jungle came innumerable
calls of birds, and fresh and woodsy odors; but the whole aspect of
the place was grim and forbidding. At the back, where there wasn't
such an overgrowth, the lane had been closed, barricaded with
barbed-wire entanglements, and fairly bristled with thistles and "No
Trespassing" signs.

"All this house needs is a mortuary tablet set up over the front
door."

But Alicia demurred.

"I'm not a bit disheartened," she declared stoutly. "There's just
one thing to be done to this house--first make it beautiful, and
then make it pay. It can be done. It's going to be done. It's _got_
to be done. And when it's done--we'll have a home. Vision it as it's
going to be, Sophy--rosewood and mahogany and walnut, old brass and
china and prints and portraits, the sort of things we've only been
able to dream of up to now. Why, this house has been waiting for us!
We were born to come here and make it over: it's _our_ house!"
Alicia, has the gay courage of the Irish.

The heavy iron knocker on the front door resounded clamorously.

"Uncle Adam thinks we've been ha'nted out of existence, and he's
hammering to wake the dead," said I.

But it wasn't Uncle Adam to whom we opened the door. An enormous,
square-shouldered man stood there, looking from me to Alicia with