Mr. Benson was truly anxious to learn what the young man had to say, but at the same time his professional jealousy was aroused by the implication that there was anything to be learned from the paper itself, outside of his own information concerning it.

“I was told,” he said quickly, “that this paper is positively written in Miss Van Norman’s own hand.”

Robert Fessenden, while not exactly a handsome man, was of a type that impressed everyone pleasantly. He was large and blond, and had an air that was unmistakably cultured and exceedingly well-bred. Conventionality sat well upon him, and his courteous self-assurance had in it no trace of egotism or self-importance. In a word, he was what the plainspoken people of Mapleton called citified, and though they sometimes resented this combination of personal traits, in their hearts they admired and envied it.