to explain the mystery, and had reached the point where I could no
longer resist seeing if I could solve it.

Well, the barn was transformed. Two or three new windows, a door with a
little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting
an inquiring eyebrow--and what was once a barn had become a charming
cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a
personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off
and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple
arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. You
felt at once a kind of fondness for it.

I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a
trowel in her hand.

"How are you, David Grayson?" she called out when I stopped.

"I have been planning for several days," I said, "to happen casually by
your new house."

"Have you?"

"You don't know how you have stirred our curiosity. We haven't had a
good night's rest since you moved in."

"I've no doubt of it," she laughed. "Won't you come in? I'd like to tell
you all about it."

"I also prepared to make excuses for not stopping," I said, "and thought
up various kinds of urgent business, such as buying a new snow shovel to
use next winter, but after making these excuses I intended to stop--if
I were sufficiently urged."

"You are more than urged: you are commanded."

As I followed her up the walk she said earnestly:

"Will you do me a favour? When you come in will you tell me the first
impression my living-room gives you? No second thoughts. Tell me
instantly."

"I'll do it." I said, my mind leaping eagerly to all manner of
mysterious surprises.

At the centre of the room she turned toward me and with a sweeping
backward motion of the arms, made me a bow--a strong figure instinct
with confident grace: a touch of gray in the hair, a fleeting look of
old sadness about the eyes.

"Now, David Grayson," she said, "quick!"

It was not that the room itself was so remarkable as that it struck me
as being confusingly different from the heavily comfortable rooms of the
old Starkweather house with their crowded furnishings, their overloaded
mantels, their plethoric bookcases.

"I cannot think of you yet," I stumbled, "as being here."

"Isn't it _like_ me?"

"It is a beautiful room--" I groped lamely.

"I was afraid you would say that."

"But it is. It really is."

"Then I've failed, after all."

She