Strawberry Acres | Page 5

admitted, soberly, "but--what a home it could
be made!"
"It's pretty near twice as big as our old one, and that was a fairly good
size. We could camp out in a corner of it, but that would be lonesome,
don't you think so? We might keep summer boarders."
Sally shook her head. She began to walk back through the upper halls.
Bob followed her, and they climbed the attic stairs, finding a great
space above, lighted by low windows shut in by patterns of ironwork.
"Jolly, what a place for rainy days!" ejaculated the boy, moved to
greater enthusiasm than he had felt anywhere below stairs. "You could
have a workshop and a gymnasium and all sorts of things. You could
make it really festive with a few rugs and pillows and hammocks and
things. How the fellows I know would like to get up here!"
He lingered behind his sister, who, after one comprehensive look round
the big, bare, dusty place, had slipped away downstairs again, guarding
her skirts carefully. When Bob, after planning in detail a possible and
desirable arrangement of the attic, reluctantly descended, he found her
at the top of the little flight of steps which led to the one locked door.
"Look out! The family skeleton may be hidden behind that door!" he
called, racing down the hall. "Or worse. Come away, Fatima!"
"Bob," said Sally, regarding him from the top of the steps, her cheeks
brightly flushed, her eyes alight with interest, "I simply have to know
what's beyond this door."
"What are you expecting to find there, Sis? Trunks full of gold? Family
papers, leaving all the Maxwell Lane estate to the Lanes of Henley
Street?"
She shook her head with a laughing challenge. "Wait till I get a
locksmith here!" she said.
"I'll wait," and Bob sat composedly down on the bottom step, grinning

up at his excited sister. "Going to get him out by wireless?"
CHAPTER II
EVERYBODY EXPLORES
Alighting from her mother's carriage in front of the Winona apartments
in Henley Street, Josephine Burnside dismissed her coachman and
hurried eagerly into the florid vestibule.
"I don't see how Sally endures this sort of thing," she thought, for the
hundredth time since the Lane house, near her own in Grosvenor Place,
had been sold. The door-latch clicked promptly in answer to her ring,
and at the top of the third flight she met Sally.
"I was sure it was you! I'm so glad! I'm all alone," was Sally's joyful
welcome; and the next minute Josephine found herself inside the small
passage, her outer garments being forcibly removed, and herself borne
into the little living-room and established in Uncle Timothy's reading
chair, which was the most comfortable one in the place.
"Sewing--as usual? What are you making now? Something lovely out
of nothing at all, I suppose?"
"Of course. It's a convenient accomplishment. You didn't know that
four and a half yards of Swiss muslin would make a whole frock, did
you? Well, it will--under some conditions." And Sally proudly held up
the work of her hands, a nearly finished product at which her friend,
attired at the moment in some fifteen yards of silk, stared in
amazement.
"Sally Lunn! You didn't--you couldn't! It's not skimpy in the least. You
must have pieced out with something else. But where?"
"The remains of my old one, re-enforced underneath, and used where
the least wear will come on it. It's not an exact match, but I don't think
it will show."

"Show! Not a bit. But I thought putting old and new wash goods
together wouldn't do."
"I've shrunk the new, and, as I told you, re-enforced the old with some
very thin, cheap lawn. I shall wash it myself--with the ends of my
fingers, and my eyes looking the other way. Find the old parts!"
Thus challenged, Josephine brought a pair of very bright black eyes to
bear upon the pretty frock, turning it over critically, and after some
search discovered the resourceful trick which had made the whole
lower half of the skirt and part of the sleeves out of the old muslin.
"You genius!" she cried. "I wish I were half as clever as you." She
regarded her friend with the genuine admiration and affection which
had carried the comradeship of the two girls safely through the test of
the Lanes' altered fortunes.
"How good it is to have you back!" said Sally, returning the look. "You
haven't half told me about your winter."
"Yes--but never mind that just now," said Josephine. "I've come to hear
about you. Jarvis met Max this morning, heard the news, and told it at
luncheon. I simply flew down to show you how glad I am, and to hear
more. Tell me, is it a beautiful