her, the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus Benton.

On the fly-leaf she had inscribed, "Written by my dear father during the
last year of his life, and published after his death by the parish to
which he had given so much of his noble life."

The book left me cold, but the inscription warmed me. Whatever feeling I
might have had about Miss Emily died of that inscription. A devoted and
self-sacrificing daughter, a woman both loving and beloved, that was the
Miss Emily of the dedication to "Fifty years in Bolivar County."

In the middle of the afternoon Maggie appeared, with a saucer and a
teaspoon. In the saucer she had poured a little of the jelly to test it,
and she was blowing on it when she entered. I put down my book.

"Well!" I said. "Don't tell me you're not dressed yet. You've just got
about time for the afternoon train."

She gave me an imploring glance over the saucer.

"You might just take a look at this, Miss Agnes," she said. "It jells
around the edges, but in the middle--"

"I'll send your trunk tomorrow," I said, "and you'd better let Delia
make the jelly alone. You haven't much time, and she says she makes good
jelly."

She raised anguished eyes to mine.

"Miss Agnes," she said, "that woman's never made a glass of jelly in her
life before. She didn't even know about putting a silver spoon in the
tumblers to keep 'em from breaking."

I picked up "Bolivar County" and opened it, but I could see that the
hands holding the saucer were shaking.

"I'm not going, Miss Agnes," said Maggie. (I had, of course, known she
would not. The surprising thing to me is that she never learns this
fact, although she gives me notice quite regularly. She always thinks
that she is really going, until the last.) "Of course you can let that
woman make the jelly, if you want. It's your fruit and sugar. But I'm
not going to desert you in your hour of need."

"What do I need?" I demanded. "Jelly?"

But she was past sarcasm. She placed the saucer on a table and rolled
her stained hands in her apron.

"That woman," she said, "what was she doing under the telephone stand?"

She almost immediately burst into tears, and it was some time before I
caught what she feared. For she was more concrete than I. And she knew
now what she was afraid of. It was either a bomb or fire.

"Mark my words, Miss Agnes," she said, "she's going to destroy the
place. What made her set out and rent it for almost nothing if she
isn't? And I know who rin