EAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Do you wish me to? Would you see me sometimes
if I left the Canterbury? It is _so_ lonely--you don't
know, Mr. Berkley, how lonely it is to be what you wish
me to be. Please only come and speak to me.
"LETTY."

"DEAR LETTY:
"Here is a card to a nice doctor, Phineas Benton,
M.D. I have not seen him in years; he remembers me
as I was. You will not, of course, disillusion him. I've
had to lie to him about you--and about myself. I've
told him that I know your family in Philadelphia, that
they asked me about the chances of a position here for
you as an assistant in a physician's office, and that now
you had come on to seek for such a position. Let me
know how the lie turns out.
"P. O. BERKLEY."

A fortnight later came her last letter:

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I have been with Dr. Benton nearly two weeks now.
He took me at once. He is such a good man! But--I
don't know--sometimes he looks at me and looks at me
as though he suspected what I am--and I feel my cheeks
getting hot, and I can scarcely speak for nervousness;
and then he always smiles so pleasantly and speaks so
courteously that I know he is too kind and good to suspect.

"I hold sponges and instruments in minor operations,
keep the office clean, usher in patients, offer them
smelling salts and fan them, prepare lint, roll
bandages--and I know already how to do all this quite well.
I think he seems pleased with me. He is so very kind to
me. And I have a little hall bedroom in his house, very
tiny but very neat and clean; and I have my meals with
his housekeeper, an old, old woman who is very deaf and
very pleasant.

"I don't go out because I don't know where to go.
I'm afraid to go near the Canterbury--afraid to meet
anybody from there. I think I would die if any man
I ever saw there ever came into Dr. Benton's office.
The idea of that often frightens me. But nobody has
come. And I sometimes do go out with Dr. Benton.
He is instructing a class of ladies in the principles of
hospital nursing, and lately I have gone with him to hold
things for him while he demonstrates. And once, when
he was called away suddenly, I remained with the class
alone, and I was not very nervous, and I answered all
their questions for them and showed them how things
ought to be done. They were _so_ kind to me; and one
very lovely girl came to me afte