The Spanish Chest | Page 6

was," said Win lazily. "I must have been

dreaming and yet I thought I was awake. It was such an odd dream
about a young man or rather a boy, in queer clothes ornamented with
silver buttons and wearing his hair in curls over his shoulders. I was
following him somewhere through a passage, very dark and narrow.
Then suddenly we were in a room with a big fireplace and books
around the walls. It was a beautiful old room but I never remember
seeing a place like it. Some other people came, all men, also in queer
clothes and very quiet and serious. On a table was food of some kind
and this boy I had been following began to eat but the others stood
about, apparently consulting over something. Then I woke. Wasn't it a
crazy dream? Oh, the reason we were in that passage was because
something was lost. I don't know what it was nor how I knew it was
lost but we were trying to find it."
"That was odd. You must have read something that suggested it," Mrs.
Thayne began, just as Fran and Roger came into the room, bursting
with suppressed excitement. For a few moments they talked in a duet.
"Mother, it's lovely over at St. Aubin's, ever so much nicer than here,"
Fran began breathlessly, her brown eyes sparkling. "And such a funny
little train running along the esplanade!"
"You couldn't believe there was such a beach," put in Roger. "Why, the
tide goes out forever, clear to the horizon! Fellows were playing
football down there, two games. How much does this tide rise, Win?"
"This book I've been reading says forty feet," replied his brother.
"And the houses!" Fran went on breathlessly, "all colors, cream and
brown and blue and pink."
"Oh, draw it mild, Sis," interrupted Win. "I should admire a pink
house."
"It's out there," said Frances, "and what's more, it's very pretty!"
"That's right," corroborated Roger. "Wouldn't a pink house look
something fierce at home? But here it's swell and kind of--of

appropriate," he ended lamely.
"And flowers, Mother," Frances took up the tale. "Hedges of fuchsia,
real live tall hedges, not measly little potted plants. Geraniums as tall as
I am, and ever so many roses and violets. Oh, and we've found some
lodgings. You're to see them to-morrow."
"Frances!" exclaimed her horrified mother. "You haven't been in
strange houses, inspecting rooms?"
"Why, you told us to look for them, didn't you, Mother?" replied her
astonished and literal daughter. "Roger was with me. It was perfectly
all right."
"I simply meant you to notice from the outside any attractive houses
that advertised lodgings," explained Mrs. Thayne. "Well--" she ended
helplessly, "I suppose there's no harm done."
"Why, no," Frances agreed. "What could happen? Let me tell you about
them. We took the baby cars and got off at St. Aubin's because that
especial train didn't go any farther. It's lovely there, Mother, and plenty
of lodgings to let. We walked along and saw one house that looked
pleasant, so we went up and rang and a maid showed us into a parlor.
We knew right off we didn't want to come there, because the place was
so dark and stuffy and there were fourteen hundred family photographs
and knit woolen mats and such things around. I was going to sit down
but just as I got near the chair,--it was rather dark, you see,--something
said 'Hello!' and there was a horrid great parrot sitting on the back of
the chair. I jumped about a foot."
"You screamed, too," said Roger.
"I may have exclaimed," admitted Frances judicially. "It was not a
scream. If I had yelled, you would have known it. Well, a messy old
woman came who called me 'dear,' but when I said I didn't believe my
mother would care for the rooms, she got huffy and said she was
accustomed to rent her rooms to ladies, only she pronounced it lydies.

"We left that place," went on Frances, paying no attention to the look of
silent endurance on her mother's face, "and walked some distance
without seeing anything we liked. But suddenly we came to a tiny
street going down to the sea. There were only six houses and one had a
card in the window. They faced the bay and just big rocks were on the
other side of the street. Now, listen."
Frances went on dramatically. "The house with the card was the dearest
thing, all cream-color and green, with a pink rambler rose perfectly
enormous, growing 'way up to the eaves, and a rough roof of red tiles
and steep gables. The windows were that dinky kind that open outward
and had little bits of panes. Everything was clean as clean, the steps