The house in which he lived was as stout as brick and mortar could make it; for the people said that he inspected every brick and stick as it was used; and when it was completed, his prudish sister, whom he referred to as the "Ancient Maiden," was equally careful in the furnishing, so that it was a very good house, and kept with scrupulous neatness. The Ancient Maiden's drafts were always honored, for nothing was too good for Thompson Benton's home; and those who went there never forgot the air of elegant comfort which pervaded everything. Though Thompson Benton went down town in the morning with the men who worked by the day, and carried a lunch basket, he dined in the evening in state, surrounded by silver and china both rich and rare; though he worked ten hours a day, and ate a lunch at noon, he slept at night in a bed and in a room which would have rested a king; and his house was as good as any man's need be. Very early in life Annie Benton learned, somehow, that it had been one of her father's pleasures, when he came home at night, to listen to her mother's piano-playing, when that excellent lady was alive; and, resolving to supply the vacant place, she studied so industriously with the poor teachers the town afforded that at fifteen she was complimented by frequent invitations to play for the glum and plain-spoken merchant. If she selected something frivolous, and played it in bad taste or time, and was not invited to play again for a long while, she understood that her music did not please him, and studied to remedy her fault. In course of time she found out what he wanted, though he never gave her advice or suggestion in reference to it; and he had amply repaid her for all the pains she had been to by saying once, after she had played for him half an hour in a dark room, while he rested on a sofa near her, that she was growing more like her mother every day. "There were few ladies like your mother, Annie," old Thompson would say, when the girl thanked him for his appreciation. "It pleases me that you remind me of her, and if you become as good a woman as she was, it will be very remarkable, for you have had no mother, poor child, to direct you in her way." Annie would try harder than ever, after this, to imitate the virtues of the dead woman, and bothered the Ancient Maiden a great deal to find out what she was like. She was not a drone, that much was certain; therefore the daughter was not, and tried to be as useful in the hive as she imagined her mother had been, in every way in which a worthy woman distinguishes herself. In like manner the girl learned to read to please her father, and every day he brought home with him something he had come into possession of during the day, and which he wanted read; a book, a pamphlet, or a marked paragraph in a newspaper,--he seemed to read nothing himself except business letters; but none of these, or any mention of his affairs, ever came into his home.