Such were the soft, balmy conditions in and around the Temple Mansion--conditions bringing only peace and comfort--( heart-aches were kept in check)--when one August morning there came so decided a change of weather that everybody began at once to get in out of the wet.

The storm had been brewing for some days up Moorlands way, where all Harry's storms started, but up to the present moment there had been no indications in and about Kennedy Square of its near approach, or even of its existence.
It was quite early in the day when the big drops began to patter down on Todd's highly polished knocker.

Breakfast had been served and the mail but half opened--containing among other missives a letter from Poe acknowledging one from St.George, in which he wrote that he might soon be in Kennedy Square on his way to Richmond--a piece of news which greatly delighted Harry--and another from Tom Coston, inviting them both to Wesley for the fall shooting, with a postscript to the effect that Willits was "still at the Red Sulphur with the Seymours"-- (a piece of news which greatly depressed him)--when Todd answered a thunderous rat-a-tat and immediately thereafter recrossed the hall and opened the dining-room door just wide enough to thrust in first his scared face--then his head--shoulder--arm--and last his hand, on the palm of which lay a small, greasy card bearing the inscription: John Gadgem, Agent.
The darky, evidently, was not in a normal condition, for after a moment's nervous hesitation, his eyes over his shoulder as if fearing he was being followed, he squeezed in the rest of his body, closed the door softly behind him, and said in a hoarse whisper to the room at large: "Dat's de same man been here three times yisterday.

He asked fust fer Marse Harry, an' when I done tol' him he warn't home--you was 'sleep upstairs, Marse Harry, but I warn't gwineter 'sturb ye--he say he come back dis mawnin'." "Well, but what does he want ?" asked Harry, dropping a lump of sugar in his cup.

He had been accumstomed to be annoyed by agents of all kinds who wanted to sell him one thing or another--and so he never allowed any one to get at him unless his business was stated beforehand.