Janet smiled. "You know, if you want, you can stay here for longer than a week. I hope you didn't think my invitation was limited."

"I don't know," said Kitty, her voice indicating that she was being tempted to stay forever. "A week was all I could get off. There were times today, though, when I thought I would never want to return to St.

Louis."

"Don't worry, honey," Janet reassured her. "I'm sure that after a week here, you'll be able to make a decision. And it will be one you can stick with."

"I hope so, Jan," Kitty said thoughtfully. "It's just so…so enchanting out in the woods there. To think that I might leave it to sit behind a desk and be a secretary all day, five days a week…

Sometimes it makes me sick."

Janet smiled a knowing smile. She could understand what her curvaceous sister was telling her. Her own husband of six years had literally killed himself working under the pressure of the city. He had often promised himself that he would take it easy as soon as he got enough money. But he never thought he had enough, even though by many standards he was quite a wealthy man. His drive to become more successful than he was had killed him rather suddenly, and Janet decided then and there that she was not going to let the same thing happen to her. She had used his money, a rather substantial sum, to build this cabin in a remote section of New York State's Catskills.

When it was finished, she had invited her sister and her brother to her house warming, wanting to show off her "little" cabin in the woods. It was a sort of memorial to her late husband, a man she loved very much.

Even though she had pretty much gotten over his loss, she felt a stab of pain every time she realized that he would not be there to share in its peace and relaxation, truly a setting that would have saved his life had he the chance to enjoy it. Janet and her sister had always been close, even though Kitty had moved to St. Louis from New York City after a love affair that had almost destroyed her two years ago.