The narrator hopes to purchase a large, estate-style house owned by Mel Hays. When the narrator tours the house, he falls in love with it, thinking that it is the type of place in which he has always dreamt of living. Mel Hays describes some issues with the house, including cracks in the basement and an overgrown, unkept fruit orchard. The narrator learns that Mel Hays’s wife is ill and confined to a bedroom; Hays is unable to maintain the large, old estate. During this tour, the narrator thinks about how much he enjoys Hays’s company and hopes to become friends after the sale of the house. However, when Hays suggest that he might stay over in the guest room after the sale, the narrator is taken aback, but he agrees anyway. After, the narrator puts an offer in on the house, above the asking price. To his surprise, Hays declines the offer and takes the house off the market.

The narrator becomes fixated on buying the house. He hears that Hays’s wife dies, and he writes Hays a condolence letter which Hays ignores. Sometimes, the narrator sees an upstairs light on in the house, and he wonders why Hays refuses to sell.