It was in December, about the middle of the month, as I remember, that I had a note one day from Mary Starkweather.
“The next time you go to town,” it ran, “stop in and see me. I've made a discovery.”
With such a note as that us my hand it appeared imperative that I go to town at once. I discovered, to Harriet's astonishment, that we were running out of all sorts of necessaries.
“Now, David,” she said, “you know perfectly well that you're just making up to call on Mary Starkweather.”
“That,” I said, “relieves my conscience of a great burden.”
As I went out of the door I heard her saying: “Why Mary Starkweather should care to live in her barn....”
It was a sparkling cold day, sun on the snow and the track crunching under one's feet, and I walked swiftly and with a warm sense of coming adventure.
To my surprise there was no smoke in the cottage chimney, and when I reached the door I found a card pinned upon it:
PLEASE CALL AT THE HOUSE
Mary Starkweather herself opened the door—she had seen me coming—and took me into the big comfortable old living-room, the big, cluttered, overfurnished living-room, with the two worn upholstered chairs at the fireplace, in which a bright log fire was now burning. There was a pleasant litter of books and magazines, and a work basket on the table, and in the bay window an ugly but cheerful green rubber plant in a tub.