The Pleasant Street Partnership | Page 3

his seriousness. "I am thinking of it," she said, adding, with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "if they will let me have a fireplace in this room. Shouldn't you want a fireplace if you were going to live here?"
He nodded, "'Cause if you didn't, Santa Claus couldn't come."
The lady turned gravely to the architect. "That is a consideration which had not occurred to me, but it is an important one. I shall not take it without the fireplace." Her manner said there was no need for further discussion.
"What is your name?" she asked the small boy.
He shook his head.
"Do you mean you haven't any?"
Another more vigorous shake.
"Perhaps you have forgotten it?"
"No, I haven't."
"Why not tell, then? I am always willing to tell mine."
"What is it?" he inquired with great promptness.
"But I don't think it is fair to ask me when you won't tell yours."
"You said you would."
The lady laughed. "Very well, I am Miss Pennington."
The small boy pondered this for a moment, then announced with much distinctness, "My name is James Mandeville Norton."
"Well, James, I am glad to meet you. I see you are a fair-minded person. Do you live in this neighborhood?"
James Mandeville pointed in the direction of the row of toy houses on Pleasant Street, and said he lived over there.
"Then if they give me a fireplace, you and I will be neighbors."
They were standing in the door, just outside which, on the sidewalk, was a velocipede. This James Mandeville now mounted with gravity. He did not express a hope that she might come to live near him, but there was friendliness in the tone in which he said good-by as he rode away.
"Good-by Infinitesimal James," replied the lady.
"My name's James Mandeville," he called back.
In the course of a day or two the matter of the fireplace was adjusted and the lease signed. Norah Pennington was the tenant's name, and her references all the most timorous landlord could ask.
On the afternoon of the day on which the transaction was closed Miss Pennington might have been seen walking along the Terrace, gazing about with interested eyes.
"What dear old houses," she said to herself. "I am sure Marion will like it here. This might be Doubting Castle, and there is Palace Beautiful, a little out of repair."
She stood for a moment on the corner in the full blaze of the summer sun. The happy courage of youth seemed to radiate from her. There was a vitality, a sparkle in her glance, in the waves of her sunny hair, in her smile, as with a slight gesture that embraced the Terrace, and Pleasant Street, too, she said half aloud, "Good-by till September."
CHAPTER SECOND
WHAT SHALL WE CALL IT?
"And now what shall we call it?" Norah asked.
"Call it?" echoed Marion.
They sat on the rocks beside a mountain stream that filled the air with its delicious murmur.
"Certainly, everything has to have a name. Shall it be Carpenter and Pennington, Dry-goods?"
Marion removed the dark glasses she wore, turning a pair of serious eyes upon her companion. "How absurd," she said.
"No," insisted Norah, taking the glasses and adjusting them on her own nose, "not at all. It is businesslike. Can't you see it?--a large black sign with gilt letters."
"Give me my glasses, and don't be silly. It is not to be a dry-goods' store in the first place, and above all things let us be original. If such signs are customary, ours must be different."
"Here speaks wisdom. Here the instinct of the born advertiser betrays itself. Let us think." Norah buried her face in her hands.
Marion watched her with a half smile, then as an expression of weariness stole into her face she restored the glasses and sighed, as with her elbow supported on a ledge of rock she rested her chin in her palm and looked down on the swift running water. She was extremely slender, and it was easy to guess she was also tall, and that, seen at her best, she was a person of grace and elegance rather than beauty.
"I have it," Norah cried presently. "The Pleasant Street Shop."
"Or The Neighborhood Shop," Marion suggested.
"No, let us have Pleasant Street in it. It seems a good omen that the street is called Pleasant."
Marion smiled. "Have you told Dr. Baird?" she asked.
"Yes. He said I should be a novelist, and confine my wild-goose schemes to paper."
"The Notions of Norah would be a taking title," laughed Marion, the weariness gone from her face.
"But as I told him, 'Deeds, not Dreams,' is my motto, and I'll show him if it is a wild-goose scheme. I am convinced that deep down in his heart he was interested; and although he made no promises, I believe we may count on him."
CHAPTER THIRD
AN ALIEN
With the swiftness of a small tornado, Charlotte descended the long, straight stairway only