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 before candle-light. With its windows and doors wide open, and the smell of supper coming appetizingly from the kitchen, and with a general sense of human occupation about it, the old dwelling was already like a different place from its former mysterious self. The dog ("You will call him Towzer, but his real name's Jock," Mrs. Probasco protested) trotted about. Upper rooms were unsealed, and Touchtone stared about them, meeting nothing to excite his curiosity except one or two quaint and battered pieces of furniture that seemed in keeping with the old house rather than with any modern inmates.

And before long came history, bit by bit, from Mrs. Probasco or Obed. As Philip had expected, the farm and premises on Chantico Island were not owned, but rented, by them—had been so for many years, through an agent.

The dignified, isolated old dwelling, half farmhouse, half mansion, still belonged in a family line once distinguished in the county for wealth and social position—the Jennisons. Other people might live in it, but it was always haunted by the atmosphere of stately earlier days and aristocratic occupants.