Mary went straight to Mrs. Wyeth's home on Pinckney Street and once more occupied her pleasant room on the third floor. In spite of her determination not to care she could not help feeling a little pang as she walked by the Misses Cabot's school and remembered that she would never again enjoy the privileges and advantages of that exclusive institution. She wondered how the girls, her classmates, had felt and spoken when they heard the news that she had left them and returned to Cape Cod and storekeeping. Some would sneer and laugh--she knew that--and some might be a little sorry. But they would all forget her, of course. Doubtless, most of them had forgotten her already.
But the fact that all had not forgotten was proved that very evening when, as she and Mrs. Wyeth and Miss Pease were sitting talking together in the parlor, Maggie, the maid, answering the ring of the doorbell, ushered in Miss Barbara Howe. Barbara was, as usual, arrayed like the lilies of the field, but her fine petals were decidedly crumpled by the hug which she gave Mary as soon as she laid eyes upon her.
"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."
"Then her tea-room and gift shop is a success?"
"A success! Oh, my dear! It's a scream of a success! Almost any day in summer there are at least a dozen motor cars outside the door. Everybody goes there; it's the proper thing to do. I know all this because it isn't very far from our summer home in Clayton--in the mountains, you know."
"So she made a success," mused Mary. "Were there other tea-rooms about?"
"Oh, dozens! But they're not original; hers is. They haven't the--the something--you know what I mean, Esther has the style, the knack, the--I can't say it, but you know. And you would have it, too; I'm perfectly sure you would."
Mary was evidently much interested.
"I wish I might meet your cousin," she said.
"Why, you can. She is here in Boston now, buying for the summer.
I'll phone her and we three will lunch together tomorrow. Don't say you won't; you've just got to."
So Mary, rather reluctantly, consented to make one of the luncheon party. Afterward she was glad that she did, for Miss Esther Hemingway--this was the cousin's name--was an interesting person.
She told Mary all about her tea-room and gift shop, how she started in business, the mistakes she made at first, and the lessons she had learned from experience. Because Barbara had asked her to do so she brought with her photographs of the establishment, its attractive and quaint exterior and its equally delightful interior.
"The whole secret," she said, "is in keeping everything in good taste and simple. Choose the right location, fit up your rooms in taste and cheerfully, serve the best you can find, and sell the unusual and the attractive things that other people do not have, or at least are not likely to have. Then charge adequate prices."
"Adequate being spelled A double D," observed Barbara significantly.
Mary parted from Miss Hemingway with a new idea in her head, an idea that sometime or other she meant to put into practice.
