back on ten times a day, and that was that. Captain Early read calmly, then looked up and said, “Perhaps you haven’t seen a stove like the one in this room, Miss Mayfield. It is of German design, and remarkably efficient. You may be familiar with the writings of Mr. Twain. He commented favorably on German stoves some years ago. We have had this one since I sent it home from Berlin.”
“The door for putting in the wood is very small,” said Lavinia.
“It uses very little wood, and it hardly has to be attended to at all,” said Mrs. Early. “It is quite an innovation.”
There was a moment of silence, then Mrs. Early said, “My son has an eye for innovation.”
Captain Early nodded, looked at Lavinia and Margaret in a serious way, and then went back to his book.
He was like the person she had met bicycling, but he was unlike him, too. In her appreciation of the book, which she now opened, Margaret saw that perhaps she had taken an unreasoning dislike to the man. Even so, his presence had an odd effect on her—it was as if something around her, some field or edge, were impinged upon or dented by the same thing, but much more powerful, around him. It was a relief that he was sitting across the room.
The first line of the book he had handed her was “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.” She felt a palpable pleasure upon reading this, compounded of the promise inherent in the everyday scene and the comfort of the room she was in, the gaslights on, the curtains drawn, the chairs and the carpet so rich and clean. There would be supper, and an entire night of respite from the exterior cold. She looked at Captain Early again. He was quiet and relaxed, and then he felt her gaze, and looked up and smiled. She dipped her head.
After a delicious supper, the captain and Margaret read a little longer while Lavinia knitted and Mrs. Early did embroidery. Mrs. Hitchens had coincidentally set off for Minnesota at just the wrong time, and was stranded in Chicago, but she was staying at the Palmer House Hotel.
Captain Early remarked, “The floor of the barbershop there is tiled in silver dollars, you know.”
“My land!” exclaimed Lavinia. “How much could that possibly cost?”
“Thirty-six dollars per foot, or eighty-six hundred forty dollars, given the size of the room as I estimated it just by looking,” said Captain Early promptly.
“Such an extravagance!” exclaimed Lavinia.
“It’s a very elegant hotel,” said Mrs. Early, complacently. “I’m quite certain that Helen will be comfortable there until they clear the snowdrifts from the lines.”
That night, as they prepared for rest (three steaming hot-water bottles carried up ahead of time to warm the feather comforters piled on the bed), Lavinia said, “He seems to have quite a stock of information. And he’s not bad-looking, all in all.”
Margaret didn’t say anything.
“He did smile at you, Margaret, dear.”
“Was I glaring?”
“Why, no. You never glare.”
“Mercer told Elizabeth that I glare and make jokes and so fellows are afraid of me.”
“She repeated that?”
“I overheard it.”
“We never overhear good of ourselves, and that’s a fact.”
“But maybe sometimes we overhear what we need to know?”
Lavinia didn’t answer that, but said, “Of course, you are a quiet girl. Everyone knows that. But Captain Early looked at you several times. Four times. Once for quite a spell.”
“As if he were calculating my dimensions?”
“Rather like that, yes. But that isn’t necessarily unfavorable.”
They didn’t say anything after that, but each of them saw what the other was seeing also—that this third bedroom was furnished in the latest style, that the comforters were made of satin, and the sheets of linen, and the washstand of mahogany, and the draperies of velvet, and the carpet of thick wool, that the room was quiet and readily conducive to a peaceful rest. Heretofore, Lavinia had upheld the Bells’ house on Kingshighway as the most elegant house she knew, and John Gentry’s farmhouse as the most comfortable, but from this house, all questions of expense had been banished.
They had a pleasant breakfast in the morning, but Captain Early was not present—he had stayed up studying the heavens until almost dawn, taking advantage of the clear weather, and was still abed. They went home that afternoon.
They did see Captain Early one more time before he