But Viola shook her head, and I was glad, for I liked its being there. I felt a good deal of comfort through the picture of the pretty woman who held the little baby so tightly in her arms and smiled at any one who looked at her. We all needed comfort, and some one who could smile. It was twelve before Viola slept, and after she did, I put out the light, and tiptoed down to Leslie’s room. I found Leslie sitting up by her table, writing, and I couldn’t help seeing an envelope on it that was addressed to Ben Forbes. She saw that I saw it, and she spoke. “Jane,” she said, “I’ve been a perfect fool. . . . I’ve always hated any one who belittled my importance or anything about me. . . . When Viola did--you know how it was--” (She drew her pretty pink, quilted dressing gown closer around her, and went on) “and I imagine the reason I haven’t been wild over Aunt Sheila was because I felt she didn’t _worship_. . . And you know I wanted to punish Ben Forbes--because he told me _the truth_. . . . I’m writing him--” she shoved the sheet of paper on which she had been writing toward me--“because, after he had hurt me, _with truth_, I told him that what he said made _no_ difference to me, that I considered him rather uncouth, and that I had written him _only_ from kindness, and the fact that I felt he was rather shut off out there in the wilds--and--lots more! Well, to get through with this, this afternoon and to-night some things have been driven home to me by Viola’s losing her own father after she had hurt him. . . . She’ll have to remember now--all her life--how she had hurt him just before he died. They say”--Leslie groped for a handkerchief, and mopped her tears frankly--“they say that all sorts of accidents happen on--on r-_ranches_--” And then she covered her face and sobbed. I moved around the table to stand by her and put my arm around her, and then she spoke. “Read--it,” she said, with a big sob between the two words, and I did. “DEAR BEN:” she had written. “All my life I have been conceited; you must know it now. I do--which is a miracle--and I’m writing to-night to say that the truth you told me helped me and is helping me. I am working hard; I hope I am less a fool. “With gratitude, “Your old neighbor and friend, “LESLIE PARRISH.” “Is it all right?” she asked, as I laid it down. “Yes,” I answered, “but if he likes you, and you hurt him, you ought to say you are sorry for that--” She nodded quickly, and reached for her pen. “What would you say?” she asked, as she looked down, uncertainly, at her lovely monogramed paper. “If I liked him, _really_,” I said, “I would write a postscript. I’d say something like, ‘Dear Ben, I like you, and I didn’t mean those things I said when I was cross. I will be very grateful if you will forgive me--’” And she wrote just that.