Mr. Homer gasped, and loosened his necktie convulsively.

"My mind is probably failing," he said. "That voice--is probably a hallucination;--a--an aberration; a--you hear no voice, I should surmise, Thomas?"

He gazed eagerly at Tommy, who, really alarmed for his friend's reason, stared at him in return.

"Of course I hear it, sir," he said. "He's hollering fit to raise the roof. Riled, I expect; you'd better let me go, Mr. Homer."

Mr. Homer relaxed his hold. "Thomas," he said, solemnly, "I think it improbable that you will find any corporal substance at that door: nevertheless, open it, if you will be so good! open it, Thomas!"

Greatly wondering, Tommy Candy ran to the door and flung it wide open.

There on the threshold stood a man, his hand raised in the act of knocking again. A little man, in a flyaway cloak, with a flyaway necktie and long, fluttering mustaches; a little man who looked in the dim light like a cross between a bat and the Flying Dutchman.

"House!" said the little man. "Within there!"

"Well," said Tommy, slowly, "I never said it was a monument!"

The stranger made a gesture of brushing him away.

"Minion," he said, "bandy no words, but straightway tell me, does Homer Hollopeter lurk within?"

"Did you wish to see him?" inquired Tommy, civilly yet cautiously. A backward glance over his shoulder gave him a curious impression. Mr.

Homer's shadow, as he stood just within the parlor door, was thrown on the pale shining wood of the hall floor; this shadow seemed to flutter, with motions singularly like those of the stranger. Another moment, and the little gentleman came forward, carrying a candle. He was trembling violently, and, as he held the candle high, its wavering light fell on the countenance of the stranger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AS HE HELD THE CANDLE HIGH, ITS WAVERING LIGHT FELL ON THE COUNTENANCE OF THE STRANGER"]

"Gee whiz!" muttered Tommy Candy. "It's himself over again in black."

"It is my brother Pindar!" cried Mr. Homer, dropping the candle. "It is my only brother, whom I thought dead--a--defunct;--a--wafted to--my dear fellow, my dear brother, how are you? This is a joyful moment; this is--a--an auspicious occasion; this is--a--an oasis in the arid plains which--"

"Encircle us!" said Mr. Pindar. "Precisely! Homer, embrace me!"

He flung his arms abroad, and the batlike cloak fluttered out to its fullest width. Mr. Homer seemed to shrink together, and it was himself he embraced, with a frightened gesture.

"Oh, quite so!" he cried, hurriedly. "Very much so, indeed, my dear brother. The spirit, Pindar, the spirit, returns your proffered salute; but foreign customs, sir, have never obtained in Quahaug. I bid you heartily, heartily welcome, my dear brother. Come in, come in!"

Mr. Pindar flung up his hand with a lofty gesture. "My benison upon this house!" he cried. "The wanderer returns. The traveller--a--sets foot upon his native heath--I would say door-step. Flourish and exeunt. Set on!"

The two brothers vanished. Tommy Candy, still standing on the threshold, stared after them with his mouth wide open, and slowly rumpled his hair till it stood on end in elfish spikes, as it had done in his childhood.

"I swan!" said Tommy Candy. "I swan to everlastin' gosh! the Dutch is beat this time!"

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. PINDAR

Tommy Candy was about to reenter the house, when something seemed to attract his attention. He gazed keenly through the soft darkness at the house opposite; then he uttered a low whistle, and, leaning on his stick (for Miss Penny was right; poor Tommy was very lame, and had climbed his last steeple), made his way down the garden-path to the gate. "Annie Lizzie, is that you?" he asked, in a low tone.

"Hush!" the answer came in a soft voice. "Yes, Tommy. How you scared me!

I didn't think there was any one up. Ma thought she heard something, and wanted I should look out and see if there was any one round."

"You tell her the Sheriff has come to get Isaac," said Tommy, "and he's stopping with us overnight. He'll be over in the morning, tell her, with the handcuffs, bright and early."

"Oh, hush, Tommy! you hadn't ought to talk so!" said the soft voice, and a slender figure slipped across the road in the dark, and came to the gate. "Honest, Tommy, I wish you wouldn't talk so about Isaac and the rest of 'em. It don't seem right."

"Annie Lizzie," said Tommy, "I never said a word against ary one of 'em, so long as I thought they was your kin; but since I found out that you was only adopted, why, I don't see no reason why or wherefore I shouldn't give 'em as good as they deserve, now I don't."

"Well, they did adopt me," said Annie Lizzie. "Don't, Tommy, please! Ma says--"

"She ain't your Ma!" interrupted Tommy; "and I don't want you should call her so, Annie Lizzie; there!"

"Well, she says I would have gone on the town only for them," the soft voice went on. "You wouldn't want I should be ungrateful, would you, Tommy?"

"No, I wouldn't," said Tommy, grimly. "I'm willing you should be grateful for all the chance you've had to wash and scrub and take care of them Weight brats. But this ain't what I called you over for, Annie Lizzie. Say, there did some one come just now; Mr. Homer's brother!"

"I want to know!" said Annie Lizzie. In the darkness, Tommy could almost see her glow with gentle wonder and curiosity. "What is he like, Tommy?

I didn't know Mr. Homer had a brother, nor any one belongin' to him nearer than Mis' Strong."

"No more did I," said Tommy. "But here he is, as like Mr. Homer as two peas, only he's a black one."

"For gracious' sake, Tommy Candy! you don't mean a colored man?"

"No, no! I mean dark-complected, with black eyes. You make an errand over to-morrow, and you'll see him. He looks to be a queer one, I tell you!"

"If he's as good as Mr. Homer," said Annie Lizzie, "I shouldn't care how queer he was."

"No more should I," cried Tommy, warmly; "but he'd have to work pretty hard to ketch up with Mr. Homer in goodness. Say, Annie Lizzie, come a mite nearer, can't you?"

"I can't, Tommy. I must go home this minute; Ma will be wonderin' where I am. There! do let me go, Tommy!"

A window was raised in the house opposite, and the wheezy voice of Mrs.

Weight was heard:

"Annie Lizzie, where are you? Don't you l'iter there now, and me ketchin' my everlastin' hollerin' for you. Come in this minute, do you hear?"

There was a soft sound that was not a voice; and Annie Lizzie slipped back like a shadow across the road.

"I'm comin', Ma!" she said. "It's real warm and pleasant out, but I'm comin' right in."

"Do you see any one round?" asked the Deacon's widow.

Annie Lizzie shut her eyes tight, for she was a truthful girl. "No'm,"

she said; "I don't."

In the Captain's room, Mr. Homer's favorite apartment, the two brothers stood and looked each other in the face. As Tommy said, the likeness was intimate, spite of the difference in color: the same figure, the same gestures, the same general effect of waviness in outline, of flutter in motion; yet, to speak in paradox, with a difference in the very likeness. There was an abruptness of address in the newcomer, foreign to the gentle ambiguous flow of Mr. Homer's speech; where Mr. Homer waved, Mr. Pindar jerked; where Mr. Homer fluttered feebly, his brother fluttered vivaciously. They fluttered now, both of them, as they stood facing each other. For a moment neither found words, but it was Mr.

Pindar who spoke first.