keep losing your spectacles. Old folks always do. And when I find them and bring them to you, you must always say that they are the ones you use for looking far off and you want your reading glasses."

The exchange of several letters between Burton[Pg 22] Forbes and his prospective hostess resulted in an arrangement entirely satisfactory from Agatha's standpoint. Her boarder was to make the trip from the city without an attendant. Howard would meet him at the station with the carryall and convey him to Oak Knoll, where Agatha would make him welcome as the son of a friend long dead. The possibility of Mr. Forbes' enlightenment through the interference of neighbors she had met with characteristic decision by disseminating the information that her home was to serve as temporary asylum for a blind gentleman, broken in health and with an unconquerable aversion to society. Without definitely reflecting on Mr. Forbes' mental condition, Agatha succeeded in conveying the impression that any one attempting to interview her blind boarder would do so at his own risk.

[Pg 22]

Youthful audacity, together with a daring peculiar to herself, carried Agatha triumphantly through the successive stages of preparation. It was not until Howard had actually driven to the station to meet the expected arrival that she began to appreciate her own temerity in committing herself to so reckless a scheme. To be an old lady for an entire summer, to be discreet and dignified—sufficiently so at least[Pg 23] to deceive a blind man—began to seem to her a contract impossible to carry out. Her knees weakened under her. An abnormal acceleration of her pulses convinced her that she was more frightened than she was willing to admit. As the time approached for Howard's return, she was almost on the point of offering a prayer that Mr. Forbes had suddenly decided on a summer in Canada.

[Pg 23]

The carryall drawn by the leisurely bays came in sight just when apprehension was reaching the point of panic. Agatha strained her eyes. Howard occupied the driver's place and in the comparative obscurity of the back seat the outlines of a masculine figure were visible. Her throat dry and her forehead unpleasantly moist, Agatha went out upon the piazza to receive her guest.

Under ordinary circumstances Howard's passenger would not have seemed a formidable personage. In spite of the disfiguring blue goggles, his clear-cut features were distinctly prepossessing. Moreover, his air of helplessness would have appealed to the maternal instinct of any 

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