On the first Saturday after the beginning of the term, Miss Beach announced that she was going to spend the day with a friend who lived five miles out of Seaton, and that if Winona had leisure to accompany her she would be pleased to take her.  No practices had been arranged for that afternoon, so Winona felt free to accept the invitation.  She had been for several short runs in the car, but for no long expedition since the memorable outing to Wickborough, so the prospect of a day in the country was alluring.

They started at about eleven o’clock, and took a road that was new to Winona, consequently all the more interesting.  Their way led through lovely woods, at present a sheet of blue hyacinths, the hedges were a filmy dream of blackthorn blossom, while the swallows wheeling and flashing in the sunshine testified to the return of summer.

Miss Carson, the lady whom they were going to visit, like most of Aunt Harriet’s friends was engaged in very interesting work.  She had taken a small holding, and with the help of a few women pupils was running it as a fruit, flower and poultry farm.  The house, an old cottage, to which she had added a wing, was charmingly pretty.  It was long and low, with a thick thatched roof, and a porch overgrown with starry white clematis.  A budding vine covered the front and in the border below great clumps of stately yellow lilies drooped their queenly heads.  The front door led straight into the house place, a square room with a big fire-place and cozy ingle nooks.  It was very simply furnished, but looked most artistic with its rush-bottomed chairs, its few good pictures, and its stained green table with the big bowl of wallflowers.

Miss Carson, a delightfully energetic lady whose age may have been somewhere between thirty and forty, welcomed them cordially.

“I don’t apologize for the plainness of my establishment,” she remarked.  “It’s all part of a purpose.  We have no servants here, and as we have to do our own house-work in addition to our farm-work, we want to reduce our labor to a minimum.  You see, there’s hardly anything to dust in this room:  the books and the china are in those two cupboards with glass doors, and we have no fripperies at all lying about.  The only ornament we allow ourselves is the bowl of flowers.  Our bedrooms are equally simple, and our kitchen is fitted with the latest and most up-to-date labor-saving appliances.  One of my students is preparing the dinner there now.  She’s a nice girl, and Winona will perhaps like to go and talk to her, unless she prefers to stay here with us.”

Winona promptly decided in favor of the kitchen, so Miss Carson escorted her there, and introduced her to Miss Heald, a jolly-looking girl of about twenty, who, enveloped in a blue overall pinafore, was putting plates to heat, and inspecting the contents of certain boilerettes and casseroles.  Like the sitting-room the kitchen contained no unnecessary articles.  It was spotlessly clean, and looked very business-like.