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“I’m sure it’s hard for you to sleep with the light on.”
    â€œOh, I’m getting used to it,” Charlie answered, feeling the chill thaw out of his cramped limbs as he studied his wife’s fair flesh, rosy lips, and the curves of her cheeks.

2

    â€œWHY DO YOU LIVE WAY UP HERE IN THE WOODS? Are you hiding?”
    That was Abbie and typical of her insolence. Ellen, disapproving, moved to the farthest corner of the cold leather seat. Ben had driven into town to fetch the girls and was driving them back to his house in his automobile. Their coast collars were turned up, their hands tucked in their muffs, their legs wrapped in blankets, but it was still torture to be speeding at twenty miles an hour through the country.
    Abbie’s question echoed the curiosity of the town. Why had a man who could afford to live comfortably close to his neighbors chosen a house in the woods for the winter months?
    â€œA whim,” Ben said. “I wanted to try painting the country at its bleakest.”
    â€œBut why do you have to live in the wilderness? Couldn’t you paint just as well if you were comfortable?”
    â€œI couldn’t be more comfortable in a New York apartment,” Ben said. And this was true. While his house was remote, it was a modern building equipped with a hot-air furnace and a water-heater. He rented it from Judge Bennett, whose family lived there from the first of June until the Tuesday after Labor Day when they moved back to their stone mansion opposite the Walkers’ house in the center of town.
    â€œI’m off the main road,” Ben continued, “but with a machine it doesn’t make much difference. Asa Keeley and his boys cut my wood and do my errands.”
    â€œBesides,” put in Ellen, “he’s got Charlie and Bedelia as his closest neighbors.”
    â€œAnd Hannah,” Ben said, smiling. “Hannah gives me more news of the town than I get from your paper, Miss Walker.”
    â€œI believe that,” Ellen said. “And I hope you’ve no skeletons in your closet, because Hannah and her sisters and cousins work in half the houses in town, and no secret’s safe. She’s cousin of the Horsts’ Mary, you know?”
    â€œDon’t I, though? I’m sure that whenever a button pops off my shirt, Hannah phones Mary about it. Mary tells Bedelia and the next time I see her, I catch her counting buttons.” Ben paused while the girls laughed. “The latest is the cigar situation,” he confided. “It seems that Bedelia threw away the cigars I gave Charlie for Christmas. She’d heard somewhere that cigars are bad for the digestion and didn’t want him to smoke them. Hannah said he made Bedelia promise not to let me know about it, so that my feelings won’t be hurt.”
    â€œI think Bedelia’s splendid,” Ellen said. “She takes such good care of Charlie.”
    The Horst house was just off the highway at the junctionwith the side road that led to the Bennett place. As they turned, they all looked at the Horst house and saw that lights were burning in the front bedroom.
    â€œThey’ll be over a bit later,” Ben told the girls. “I told them to come at half-past six. I want to show you my paintings before dinner.”
    â€œWon’t they want to see them, too?” Abbie asked.
    â€œNo doubt Bedelia’s seen them already,” Ellen remarked tartly.
    If her legs had not been secured by blankets, Abbie would have kicked Ellen’s shin.
    â€œShe’s seen them often,” Ben remarked, apparently unmoved by Ellen’s insinuations. “She’s an excellent critic.”
    Ben seemed anxious to show off his work. He hardly gave the girls time to take off their coats and hats before he rushed them into the north bedroom which he used as a studio. Except for an easel, a stool, and a paint-stained table, the room was bare. No canvas had been