"You're getting to be pretty popular, Aggie. Every time I go to the village there's mail for you. Two letters yesterday and three to-day."

"How warm you look, Howard." Agatha pushed the boy's heavy hair back from his moist forehead. "You mustn't get overheated and take cold." She was deliciously maternal in her solicitude for the sturdy youngster who already topped her by an inch or two.

"I'll look warmer before the day's over. I'm going to tackle the garden now. If you'd ever seen summer boarders eat new green peas you'd know 'twas time to get busy."

Howard departed as he had come, and his sister, her face overcast, gave her attention to her mail. The first letter opened was flung petulantly to the floor.

"Woman wants to know how many bathrooms we have, and will I please send her the names of several former patrons as references. Worse than Mrs. Leavett."

[Pg 12]

[Pg 12]

"They're an unreasonable lot, summer boarders," acquiesced Miss Finch.

The second letter was as unsatisfactory, judging from the impetuosity of its flight across the room.

"She's the widow of a missionary and wants board at half rates, and the younger children not to count."

"I don't believe you've got the temper for running a boarding-house," commented Miss Finch. "You're as fiery as red pepper and next to the married state, keeping boarders calls for a saintly disposition."

Agatha prying open the third communication with a hairpin, vouchsafed no reply. But her perturbed air changed magically to breathless attention. Her eyes moved slowly down the typewritten page, her air of stupefaction increasingly in evidence. Checking herself with an impatient gesture, she started again at the beginning and read the letter aloud:

CONTENTS

"'My Dear Miss Kent:

My Dear Miss Kent

"'My attention has just been called to your advertisement in the current Onlooker. I can hardly hope that you remember me, for it is over twenty years since our last meeting, and at that time I was an insignificant urchin of twelve—'"

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