Ben, therefore, realizing that the little woman was always glad to see him, made her frequent, if brief, calls. Sometimes he carried her a book, or some fruit, or at least a breath of news from the outside world--which she liked to hear about, even while professing to despise it. Perhaps Ben was not altogether single-minded in this matter--who of us is absolutely single-minded about anything? Perhaps he visited Miss Chatterwits as much to hear her talk about Kate as to give pleasure to the old lady herself. Perhaps Miss Chatterwits, reading his mind better than he did himself, often talked purposely of the subject that lay so very near his heart. It was certainly no accident when she turned nervously to Ben one day with the words: "There's something I feel's if I ought to tell you;"--and the young man rose from the little wooden rocker in which he had vainly tried to look comfortable, saying cheerfully: "Is there? Well, do tell me." Then Miss Chatterwits bridled a little, and blushed, and said: "Well, of course, there's some people that think an old maid hasn't any real knowledge of matters relating to the affections"--she did not exactly like to come out broadly with "love affairs"--"but, so far as I'm concerned myself, I know pretty well what's going on around me and how people feel about most things--though I don't always tell what I know." Then Ben felt himself growing a little uncomfortable, while the blood rushed to his face. It was leap year, but surely Miss Chatterwits was not going to wax sentimental toward him. She did not leave him long in doubt. "As I tell Kate," she continued, "people don't always know the exact state of their own feelings. She thinks she'll be an old maid, but she's making a mistake if she thinks she'd be happier,--not that I haven't got along well enough myself. But Kate isn't calculated to live alone. Someway she and her mother ain't very congenial, and I guess Ralph's rather domineering. I know he's tried to stop some of her cooking classes--and--" Here Miss Chatterwits stopped--and then began to talk again. "Ben, you know that photograph that you and Ernest had taken in a group--Ernest on his bicycle, and you standing alongside?" "Oh, a little tintype." "Yes, so it was. I guess it's six or seven years since it was taken." "Yes, it must be." "Well, one day I'd been fitting on something for Kate, and she left her watch behind. There was a little locket hanging to the end of it, and I went to pick the watch up; it caught on the handle of a drawer, and as I pulled it it accidentally jerked open, and there, inside that locket, was that picture." "Oh, my dear Miss Chatterwits, it was too large to go inside any locket." "Oh, I don't mean the whole picture, but the head--your head--it had been cut clear off. There was your head in Kate's locket." Ben looked annoyed. He felt that something had been told him which he had no right to hear. He did not know what to say.