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confirmed my uneasiness. They were omnipresent. When we went outside to look at the flowers, Jed hovered—raking, pruning, picking up twigs—always within sight. When we went back in, there was Mrs. Willard suggesting a tour of the house. It was logical that she would be the guide; she had been with the family for years, whereas the house and the family history were almost as unfamiliar to Mary as they were to me. And yet…
    Mrs. Willard confirmed my hunch about the age of the house. And it was then that I first heard the name that was to assume such ominous meaning to me.
    “The Captain built it real handsome,” she said. “They tore a lot of the carvings off, later on. Why, they say in his day it was as pretty a house as that Wedding Cake House over to Kennebunk.”

    I caught Mary’s eye and managed to keep my face sober.
    “Oh, yes,” I said. “I remember seeing a picture of the Wedding Cake House.”
    I remembered it; no one who had ever seen it could possibly forget it—much as he might like to. The Kennebunk house had been reproduced in my art-history textbook as a horrible example of American Gothic run wild. But I wasn’t about to explain that, not when Mrs. Willard so obviously admired the style, and she took it for granted that I remembered the house because of its beauty.
    “It was the Captain’s son that did a lot of the damage,” she said. Her tone was so actively resentful that it came to me with a shock that the Captain’s son must have been dead for almost a century. “They do say he even wanted to tear down the tower. But the builder warned him the whole middle section of the roof might fall in if he did.”
    “What a shame,” I said. “That he—er—damaged the house. But surely this part wasn’t built by the Captain? It must be older.”
    We were on the second floor of the central section, looking down the hall from my room. The major bedrooms were on this corridor and the cross-corridor that connected with it. There were eight bedrooms, and I knew by their proportions and the shapes of the mantels, as well as the beautiful old hand-pegged floors, that they had been built in an earlier and more beauty-loving era than the Captain’s.
    “Yes, this was the Old House,” Mrs. Willard agreed. “The Captain bought it in 1826, after he made his fortune. He had it rebuilt for his bride. She was a Barnes from Boston and she had to have a fine house.”
    To my shame I had never heard of the Barneses of Boston, but I gathered from Mrs. Willard’s tone that they ranked up there with the Cabots. So I nodded, looking impressed, and Mrs. Willard, encouraged by my interest, continued her lecture.
    “He had these rooms furnished much nicer than they are right now. The master bedroom—that’s the one Ran and Mary have—had a beautiful big carved wood mantel. They took that down in 1930, when old Mr. Max did a lot of remodeling.”
    I could imagine the kind of overmantel which old Mr. Max had scrapped, restoring the beautifully simple Adam-style mantel with its carved bas-reliefs and French tile facing. It was clear that the house owed its present charm to Mr. Max. He had torn out many of the Victorian embellishments and put back into use the older furniture which his ancestors had relegated to the attic.
    “He must have been quite a guy,” I said.
    Mary nodded.
    “He was Ran’s grandfather; Ran remembershim quite well. I knew you’d like the house, Jo. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it.”
    “I never knew Ran owned this place.”
    “He didn’t until recently. His great-aunts lived here. The last of them died in March. There was some kind of silly family quarrel, something to do with his mother’s remarriage—the aunts didn’t approve. Ran never expected to see the place again after he and his mother left. But the old lady repented on her deathbed and left him the house as a way of healing the feud.”
    Mrs. Willard said briskly,
    “And high time, too. Such nonsense…Now