om the city, Miss Agnes. Them carpets haven't been lifted
for years."

But I paid little attention to her. To Maggie any particle of matter not
otherwise classified is a germ, and the prospect of finding dust in that
immaculate house was sufficiently thrilling to tide over the strangeness
of our first few hours in it.

Once a year I rent a house in the country. When my nephew and niece were
children, I did it to take them out of the city during school vacations.
Later, when they grew up, it was to be near the country club. But now,
with the children married and new families coming along, we were more
concerned with dairies than with clubs, and I inquired more carefully
about the neighborhood cows than about the neighborhood golf-links. I
had really selected the house at Benton Station because there was a most
alluring pasture, with a brook running through it, and violets over the
banks. It seemed to me that no cow with a conscience could live in those
surroundings and give colicky milk.

Then, the house was cheap. Unbelievably cheap. I suspected sewerage
at once, but it seemed to be in the best possible order. Indeed, new
plumbing had been put in, and extra bathrooms installed. As old Miss
Emily Benton lived there alone, with only an old couple to look after
her, it looked odd to see three bathrooms, two of them new, on the
second floor. Big tubs and showers, although little old Miss Emily could
have bathed in the washbowl and have had room to spare.

I faced the agent downstairs in the parlor, after I had gone over the
house. Miss Emily Benton had not appeared and I took it she was away.

"Why all those bathrooms?" I demanded. "Does she use them in rotation?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"She wished to rent the house, Miss Blakiston. The old-fashioned
plumbing--"

"But she is giving the house away," I exclaimed. "Those bathrooms have
cost much more than she will get out of it. You and I know that the
price is absurd."

He smiled at that. "If you wish to pay more, you may, of course. She is
a fine woman, Miss Blakiston, but you can never measure a Benton with
any yard-stick but their own. The truth is that she wants the house off
her hands this summer. I don't know why. It's a good house, and she has
lived here all her life. But my instructions, I'll tell you frankly, are
to rent it, if I have to give it away."

With which absurd sentence we went out the front door, and I saw the
pasture, which decided me.