“You bad girl!” she cried. “Why didn't you tell me you were in town? And why didn't you answer my letter--the one I wrote you at South Harniss? I didn't hear a word and only tonight, after dinner, I had the inspiration of phoning Mrs. Wyeth and trying to learn from her where you were and what you meant by dropping all your friends. Maggie answered the phone and said you were here and I threw on my things--yes, 'threw' is the word; nothing else describes the process--and came straight over. How DO you do? And WHAT are you doing?” Mary said she was well and that she had been too busy to reply to Miss Howe's letter. But this did not satisfy. Barbara wanted to know why she had been busy and how, so Mary told of her determination to remain in South Harniss and become a business woman, Barbara was greatly excited and enthusiastic. “Won't it be perfectly splendid!” she exclaimed. “I only wish I were going to do it instead of having to stay at that straight-up-and-down school and listen to Prissy's dissertations on Emerson. She told the Freshman class the other day that she had had the honor of meeting Mr. Emerson when very young--when SHE was young, she meant; she always tells every Freshman class that, you know--and one of the Freshies spoke up and asked if she ever met him afterwards when he was older. They said her face was a picture; I wish I might have seen it. But do tell me more about that wonderful store of yours. I am sure it will be a darling, because anything you have anything to do with is sure to be. Are you going to have a tea-room?” Mary shook her head. “No,” she said, laughing. “I think not. There's too much competition.” “Oh, but you ought to have one. Not of the ordinary kind, you know, but the--the other kind, the unusual kind. Why, I have a cousin--a second--no, third cousin, a relative of Daddy's, she is--who hadn't much money and whose health wasn't good and the doctor sent her to live in the country. Live there all the time! Only fancy! Oh, I forgot you were going to do the same thing. Do forgive me! I'm so sorry! WHAT a perfect gump I am! Oh, dear me! There I go again! And I know you abhor slang, Mrs. Wyeth.” “Tell me more about your cousin, Barbara,” put in Mary, before the shocked Mrs. Wyeth could reply. “Oh, she went to the country and took an old house, the funniest old thing you ever saw. And she put up the quaintest little sign! And opened a tea-room and gift shop. I don't know why they call them 'gift shops.' They certainly don't give away anything. Far, far from that, my dear! Daddy calls this one of Esther's 'The Robbers' Roost' because he says she charges forty cents for a gill of tea and two slices of toast cut in eight pieces. But I tell him he doesn't pay for the tea and toast alone--it is the atmosphere of the place. He says if he had to pay for all his atmosphere at that rate he would be asphyxiated in a few months. But he admires Esther very much. She makes heaps and heaps of money.”