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car. “Hope you don’t mind if I take my Vette, I don’t very often get a chance to drive it during the day.”
      “Oh. No, that’s fine.”
      “Do you like it?”
      “What?” Elizabeth asked.
      “My car.”
      “Oh. Well, it’s flashy, Mr. Antonella,” Elizabeth answered. She couldn’t very well say what she felt, which was that actually, it didn’t strike her as an adult car. “Turn left at the corner,” is what she did say. “On the right, in the next block, the corner house.”
      “The corner house! The Morris estate? You’re that Morris?”
      “Well, my grandfather was ‘that Morris.’ “
      His attitude changed immediately. “Well, I’m impressed,” he said, turning  and giving her that appraising eye again. “I am impressed! You walk in off the street....”
      “I didn’t see much point in driving two blocks,” Elizabeth said, not entirely comfortable with the extreme proximity of his over-bearing beauty and perfume.
      “Ha, ha!” Mr. Antonella laughed. “That’s very amusing. Ha, ha. Sit right there.” He leapt out of the car and ran around and opened her door, offering her his hand. They walked up the path to the house, and Elizabeth let them in the front door.
      “Um-hum,” he said, standing in the pools of stained glass light.
      “This room, Mr. Antonella, to our left....”
      “Please, please call me Tony. If we’re to do business together, I’ll feel more comfortable if you call me Tony. And I hope you’ll let me call you... I’m sorry, what was your first name again?”
      “Elizabeth.”
      “Liz, that’s great.”
      “Well, actually, I’m not a Liz,” Elizabeth protested.
      “Of course you are. You just haven’t let it out yet.”
      Elizabeth wondered what that meant, but she let it pass. “Anyway, as I was saying, the first room to our left has always been Grandfather’s study, technically it’s the parlor.” She led him into the room. “The pocket doors work perfectly.” She demonstrated. “The next room is the music room,” she said, leading him into the neighboring room, where loomed a grand piano.
      “Do you play?” Tony asked perfunctorily, peering at the hardwood flooring.
      “Not really. I took lessons in grade school, but my artistic inclinations took another direction.”
      She led him through the music room to the next room, dominated by a large four poster bed. “This was originally the back parlor, but Grandfather moved in here oh, about five years ago when the stairs got to be too much for him.”
      The front doorbell rang.
      “Who could that be?” Elizabeth said, surprised. She’d paid the paperboy last week. “I’ll be right back.”
      She peeked through the front door window. Peter wandered around the porch, dressed in jeans and a green turtle neck pullover the color of his eyes.
      “Hello!” she said to him through the screen door.
      He turned abruptly. “Hi! Are you busy? Is that what you got?” he asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the Corvette.
      “No, it’s the real estate agent’s.”
      “The agent? Oh!” Peter sounded clearly disappointed and a slight look of confusion passed his eyes. “Should I go?”
      Elizabeth felt embarrassed. After all, they’d talked about trading yesterday, but she’d thought it was friendly banter. “I... wanted to get a notion of what this place is worth. I didn’t want to get caught again quite as unprepared as I was yesterday when I didn’t know what the car was worth. Come on in,” she urged, opening the door wider.
      “I shouldn’t interfere while you’re trying to conduct business,” Peter protested.
      “Nonsense,” Elizabeth said, smiling. “I might as well show the house to everyone at once!”
      Peter stepped into the entry way bringing the fresh scent of spring with him. “Well, okay, but only because I’m dying to see it.” He looked around at the stained glass window panes around the