While Jerry, with affectionate admonishing, silenced her dogs, Mrs. Travis led their guest toward the little house. She was deeply concerned at his plight; he must not dream of attempting to return to Wayside until he had rested--he must spend the night at Sunnyside and then in the morning Toby Chubb could drive him over. Dr. Travis would soon be back and he would be delighted to find that she and Jerry had kept him.
"We do not meet many new people on this side of the mountain," she said, smilingly. "You will be giving us a treat!"
So deeply interested was John Westley in the Travis family and their unusual home, tucked away on the side of the mountain, to all appearances miles away from anyone or anything (though Jerry had pointed out to him the trail down the hillside that led to Miller's Notch and the school and the little church and was a mile shorter than going by the road), that he forgot completely the alarm that must be upsetting the entire management of the Wayside Hotel over the disappearance of a distinguished guest. Indeed, at the very moment that he stepped across the threshold into the sunlit living room of the Travis cottage, a worried hotel manager was summoning by telegraph some of the most expert guides of the state for a thorough search of the neighborhood, and, at the same time, a New York newspaperman, at the Wayside for a vacation, was clicking off to his city editor, from the town telegraph station, the most lurid details of the tragedy.
Sunnyside, John Westley knew at once, was a "hand-made" house; each foot of it had been planned lovingly. Windows had been cut by no rule of architecture but where the loveliest view could be had; doors seemed to open just where one would want to go. The beams of the low ceiling and the woodwork of the walls had been stained a mellow brown. There was a piney smell everywhere, as though the fragrant odors of the mountainside had crept into and clung to the little house. A great fireplace crowned the room. Before it now stretched a huge Maltese cat. And most surprising of all--there were books everywhere, on shelves built in every conceivable nook and corner, on the big table, on the arm of the great chair drawn close to the west window.