with a lead pencil and then erased it--all these were as indicative
of Emily Benton as--well, as the letter was not.

As well as I can explain it, the letter was impulsive, almost urgent.
Yet the little old lady I remembered was neither of these things.
"My dear Miss Blakiston," she wrote. "But I do hope you will use the
house. It was because I wanted to be certain that it would be
occupied this summer that I asked so low a rent for it.

"You may call it a whim if you like, but there are reasons why I
wish the house to have a summer tenant. It has, for one thing, never
been empty since it was built. It was my father's pride, and his
father's before him, that the doors were never locked, even at night.
Of course I can not ask a tenant to continue this old custom,
but I can ask you to reconsider your decision.

"Will you forgive me for saying that you are so exactly the person I
should like to see in the house that I feel I can not give you up?
So strongly do I feel this that I would, if I dared, enclose your
check and beg you to use the house rent free. Faithfully yours,
Emily Benton."

Gracefully worded and carefully written as the letter was, I seemed
to feel behind it some stress of feeling, an excitement perhaps,
totally out of proportion to its contents. Years before I had met
Miss Emily, even then a frail little old lady, her small figure
stiffly erect, her eyes cold, her whole bearing one of reserve. The
Bentons, for all their open doors, were known in that part of the
country as "proud." I can remember, too, how when I was a young
girl my mother had regarded the rare invitations to have tea and tiny