“Maria is a very bright, adaptable woman of about thirty-five, who teaches music in the New York public schools, is alone in the world, and manages to keep an attractive home in a mere scrap of a flat.  When she comes to visit us, we like her as well the last day of her stay as the first, which fact speaks volumes for her character!  Though forced by circumstances to live in town, she has a deep love for the country, and wishes, if we intend to leave the house open, to come and care for it in our absence, even offering to cook for herself if we do not care to have the expense of a maid, saying, ’to cook a real meal, with a real fire instead of gas, will be a great and refreshing change for me, so you need feel under no obligation whatever!’

“Thinking of the pity of wasting such tempting offers as these, I went to church with my body only, my mind staying outside under a horse-chestnut tree, and instead of listening as I should, I looked sidewise out of the window at my double in the shade and wondered if, after all, the stay-at-home vacation was not a wild scheme.  There being a Puritan streak in me, via my father, I sometimes question the right of what I wish to do simply because I like to do it.

“At dinner I was so grumpy, answering in monosyllables, that sensitive Bart looked anxious, and as if he thought I was disappointed at the possible turn of affairs, but The Man from Everywhere laughed, saying, ’Let her alone; she is not through incubating the plan, and you know the best of setting hens merely cluck and growl when disturbed.’

“Immediately after dinner Bart and The Man went for a walk up the river valley, and I, going to the living room, seated myself by the window, where I could watch the Infant playing on the gravel outside, it being the afternoon out of both the general maid Anastasia and Barney the man, between whom I suspect matrimonial intentions.

“The singing of the birds, the hum of bees in the opening lilacs, and the garden fragrance blending with the Infant’s prattle, as she babbled to her dolls, floated through the open door and made me drowsy, and I turned from the light toward the now empty fireplace.

“A snap! and the air seemed suddenly exhilarating!  Was it an electric spark from the telephone?  No, simply the clarifying of the thoughts that had been puzzling me.

“Maria Maxwell shall come during our vacations,—­at that moment I decided to separate the time into several periods,—­she shall take entire charge of all within doors.

“Bart and I will divide off a portion of the old hay-barn with screens, and camp out there (unless in case of very bad thunder or one of the cold July storms that we sometimes have).  Anastasia shall serve us a very simple hot dinner at noon in the summer kitchen, and keep a supply of cooked food in the pantry, from which we can arrange our breakfasts and suppers in the opposite side of the barn from our sleeping place, and there we can have a table, chairs, and a little oil stove for making tea and coffee.