“Well, I want to get at the material about missionaries, for one thing … and I thought perhaps you were getting a bit bored by solitary confinement. I suppose Ed’s been too busy with all the plowing to stop in for a game.”

“I could do with a little masculine companionship,” Cornelius granted. It was a graceless remark and unlike him.

“Eben would love to come, of course. Why don’t I invite him to supper one of these days? Give Mrs. Goodnow a day off.”

“Eben …” Cornelius repeated the name. “Well, why not? Do me good to get out of my rut, and do you good to have your old admirer.” He had pulled himself up in his chair and his troubled eyes had grown bright.

“Well, I’m not too old to enjoy being admired, darling, I must confess.”

“I’ve been churlish lately—sorry.” He reached out to grasp her hand and held it firmly in his. “The trouble is I want to do more than I can. Sometimes I feel as if I were in a cage.”

“You have been marvelously patient.”

“Because I hoped patience would do it. Now …” He let her hand go and closed his eyes. “Getting better by inches just doesn’t seem good enough. I’ll be dead before I can walk or do a day’s work. I made out that list for you, and I enjoyed doing it, but I was pooped after an hour.”

“I want to get you down to Boston before Christmas. We must see what the doctors have to say.”

“Yes,” he sighed. It was clear to Christina that the effort involved, the idea of moving, dismayed him. She would ask John to come up and help. Dear John! What comfort that he was there and would be coming soon. Perhaps they could then all go back together.

After lunch she did invite Susie Plummer. The tête-à-tête needed a third now and then, if only to give them back the dear sense of intimacy after she should have come and gone.

So Miss Plummer drove up in her little red Volkswagen at precisely four, wearing a kilt, a sheepskin coat, and sheepskin boots, her head wrapped up in a long wool scarf. She carried a package of books tied together with string.

“Well, well,” she shouted in her outdoorsy voice, “donkeys’ years since I’ve been up here.” She had the quality of charging into any situation, even a merely social occasion, as if she must take it by storm. “Glad to see that bear is still around,” she said, hanging her coat on his outstretched paw with evident pleasure. “Where’s Cornelius? Can I keep on my boots? Forgot to bring my slippers.”

Christina led her into the study where a brisk fire was burning.

“Well, Cornelius, you look very snug in here, I must say.”