People wondered that old Cripps, whose violent temper was known throughout the West Roxbury and Jamaica Plains districts, was standing for that sort of thing in the house with him day after day—night after night. But the poor old boy had a reason for standing it—his absolute terror of being left alone. Whatever else the presence of Augustus did to him it saved him from that. * * * * * One afternoon late in October (it was 1910 by this time) Mr. Cripps was in the attic of the mansion trying to find something, when his glance happened to light on an old trunk in which he’d been accustomed to put letters from people acknowledging his delightful hospitality—a lazy way of keeping a visitors’ book. Up to now he’d only once had occasion to refer to these letters, and then merely to get an address. So long as the Present held out as an agreeable institution, Cripps didn’t care a great deal about recollections of bygone episodes. But of late the Present hadn’t been doing so well by him, and the Past was beginning to exhibit symptoms of attractiveness. One of these symptoms now manifested itself, drawing him so gently that he could hardly feel its pull, toward the old trunk of letters. He found a crippled chair in which he sat down before the thing and managed—with some little difficulty—to raise the lid. He’d been there nearly an hour, glancing at letters which he picked up at random here and there, when he came upon a little package of three tied together and addressed in a hand he’d forgotten. But when he began to read one of them he remembered. It was from a young girl who’d been visiting there.