them many a time. Often the last words that came into his head before he dropped asleep were "Darling Arthur" or "My dearest Arthur." Once, in a whim, he had toyed instead with the words "Darling Ada," but it did not do at all. It made him ashamed. She was not his darling, and never would be. She was just a strange and disturbing girl who had a way of haunting his dreams. But he could say "Darling Arthur" in his mind with a caressing inflection, just as Arthur said "Darling Finch" aloud without any embarrassment.
Leigh was looking so chilled that Finch was glad when he was able to steer him at last up the driveway behind the shelter of the spruces and hemlocks. "Here we are!" he announced, rather boisterously, because he felt nervous about introducing his friend to his family. It was the first time he had ever brought a friend home with him from town.
Leigh paused to look at the old house. It stood solidly before him, its façade, crisscrossed by the bare stalks of the Virginia creeper, dark red like some ruddy old weather-beaten face, seamed by wrinkles, yet expressing great power and endurance. The upper windows were veiled by a coating of frost, but through the lower ones he could see the dancing brightness of firelight. The wind shrieked about him. Every shutter on the house seemed to be rattling. He thought: "So this is where Finch was bred."
A great round stove in the hall sent forth a blasting heat. They hung their coats and caps on an old-fashioned hatrack, ornamented on the top by a carved fox's head. An old bob-tailed sheep-dog lay by the stove. He did not rise when Finch bent and patted him, but rolled over on his back and waved shaggy deprecating paws.
"Is he old?" asked Leigh.
"Just four years younger than I am."
"Likes the heat, eh?" Leigh held his hands, rigid with cold, toward the stove.
From the drawing-room came the crackle of flames and the sound of a strong old voice talking steadily.
"Now I've got you. Cornered, eh? Ha, no you
