POLLY uttered a sharp cry and stared at the intruder blankly. He was tall and military looking and had a smooth, well-shaven face. But his clothes were in rags and his features, worn by illness and coarsened by dissipation were of a type to cause a young girl like her to recoil.

“Who is this man?” she cried at last, “and what is he doing here?”

“It is the new hermit! The man who has taken up with Hadley’s old quarters,” exclaimed one of the neighbors from the group about Polly. “I saw him yesterday in the graveyard.”

“Yes, and there is his dog, Piper. He follows every old tramp who comes into town. Don’t you remember how he tagged at the heels of that old beggar with a long beard, who went through here a month ago?”

“This fellow looks as if he were strong enough to work,” whispered one of the women.

“I shan’t give any of my stale victuals to a man with an arm strong enough to fell an ox,” murmured another.

Here Clarke, who had only waited for an opportunity to speak, now advanced to the man standing in the doorway. As he did so he noticed that the wayfarer’s attention was not fixed upon the persons before him, but upon the walls and passages of the house they were in.

“Have you come here begging?” he inquired. “If so you have made a mistake; this is a disused house which we have been opening for the first time in years.”

“I know its every room and its every corner,” answered the haggard-looking tramp imperturbably. “I could tell you what lies under the stairs in the cellar, and point out to you the books which have been stacked away in the garret: That is, if no other hand has disturbed them since I placed them there fifteen years ago.”

A cry of astonishment, of despair almost, answered these words. It came from the blanching lips of Polly. Clarke trembled as he heard it, but otherwise gave no sign of concern. On the contrary he eyed the intruder authoritatively.

“Tell me your name!” he demanded. “Are you——”

“I will not say who I am, here, with the sunlight streaming on my back and no friendly eye to recognize my features. I will only speak from under the portrait of Ephraim Earle; I want a witness to the truth of my statements and in that canvas I look for it.”

And neither heeding Clarke’s detaining hand, nor the almost frantic appeal which spoke in the eyes of the young girl whose question he had at last answered, he stalked into the parlor and paused directly beneath the portrait he had named.

“Cannot you see who I am?” he asked, rearing his tall head beside the keen-faced visage that looked down from the wall.

“The same man grown older,” exclaimed one.

“Ephraim Earle himself!” echoed another.

“Come back from the dead!”

“The moment the house was opened!”

“Are you Ephraim Earle?” demanded Clarke, trembling for Polly in whose breast a real and unmistakable terror was rapidly taking the place of an imaginary one.

“Since I must say so, yes!” was the firm reply. “Where is my daughter? She should be on hand here to greet me.”

“I have no words of welcome. I never thought of my father being like this. Take me away, Clarke, take me away!” So spoke the terrified little one, clinging to one of her best-known neighbors for support.

“I will take you away,” Clarke assured her. “There is no need of your greeting this man till he has proved his claim to you. A girl’s heart cannot be expected to embrace such a fact in a moment.”

“Oh, it’s Ephraim Earle fast enough,” insisted one old woman. “I remember him well. Don’t you remember me, old neighbor?”

“Don’t I?” was the half hearty, half jeering answer. “And I wish I had a pair of your green and white worsted socks now.”

“It’s he, it’s he!” vociferated the delighted woman. “When he was a young man I sold him many a pair of my knitting. To be sure I use blue now instead of green, but they were all green in his day, bless him!” As this prayer was not repeated by her companions in the room, upon whom his reckless if not sinister appearance had made anything but a happy impression, he came slowly from under the picture and stood for a moment before the dazed and shrinking Polly.

“You are not glad to see me,” he remarked, “and I must say I do not wonder. I have lived a hard life since I left you a crying child in your mother’s room upstairs, but I am your father, for all that, and you owe me respect if not obedience. Look up, Maida, and let me see what kind of a woman you have grown to be.”

At this name, which had been a pet one with her parents and with them alone, the neighbors stared and Polly shrank, feeling the iron of certainty pierce deep into her soul. She met his eyes, however, with courage and answered his demand by a very natural reproach.

“If you are my father, and alas! I see no reason to doubt it, I should think you would feel some shame in alluding to a growth which you have done nothing to advance.”

“I know............