Porter Bigelow, sitting unobtrusively in the background, was moved by her earnestness.  “There’s something back of it,” his quick mind told him; “she knows about—­Barry——­”

But Barry, too, was on his feet.  “Oh, look here, Mary,” he was expostulating, “I’m not going to have you stay at home and miss a winter of good times, just because I’ll have to eat a few meals in a boarding-house.  And I sha’n’t have to eat many.  When I get starved for home cooking, I’ll hunt up my friends.  You’ll take me in now and then, for Sunday dinner, won’t you, General?—­Leila says you will; and it isn’t as if you were never coming back—­Mary.”

“If we close the house now,” Mary said, “it will mean that it won’t be opened again.  You all know that.”  Her accusing glance rested on Aunt Frances and the General.  “You all think it ought to be sold, but if we sell what will become of Susan Jenks, who nursed us and who nursed mother, and what shall we do with all the dear old things that were mother’s and father’s, and who will live in the dear old rooms?” She was struggling for composure.  “Oh, don’t you see that I—­I can’t go?”

It was Aunt Frances’ crisp voice which brought her back to calmness.  “But, my dear, you can’t afford to keep it open.  Your income with what Barry earns isn’t any more than enough to pay your running expenses; there’s nothing left for taxes or improvements.  I’m perfectly willing to finance you to the best of my ability, but I think it very foolish to sink any more money—­here——­”

“I don’t want you to sink it, Aunt Frances.  Constance begged me to use her little part of our income, but I wouldn’t.  We sha’n’t need it.  I’ve fixed things so that we shall have money for the taxes.  I—­I have rented the Tower Rooms, Aunt Frances!”

They stared at her stunned.  Even Leila tore her adoring eyes from Barry’s face, and fixed them on the girl who made this astounding statement.

“Mary,” Aunt Frances gasped, “do you meant that you are going to take—­lodgers——?”

“Only one, Aunt Frances.  And he’s perfectly respectable.  I advertised and he answered, and he gave me a bank reference.”

“He.  Mary, is it a man?”

Mary nodded.  “Of course.  I should hate to have a woman fussing around.  And I set the rent for the suite at exactly the amount I shall need to take me through this year, and he was satisfied.”

She turned and picked up a printed slip from the table.

“This is the way I wrote my ad,” she said, “and I had twenty-seven answers.  And this seemed the best——­”

“Twenty-seven!” Aunt Frances held out her hand.  “Will you let me see what you wrote to get such remarkable results?”

Mary handed it to her, and through the diamond-studded lorgnette Aunt Frances read: 

“To let:  Suite of two rooms and bath; with Gentleman’s Library.  House on top of a high hill which overlooks the city.  Exceptional advantages for a student or scholar.”