for sensibleness," cried Ethel Holmes. "I read about it the other day, and it's a broom-bag. I haven't an idea what it's for; but I'll find out, and I'll make one."
"One's no good," said Marian sagely. "Make her a dozen while you're about it."
"Oh, do they come by dozens?" said Ethel, in an awestruck voice. "Well, I guess I won't make them then. I'll make her something pretty. A pincushion all over lace and pin ribbons, or something like that."
"That will be lovely," said Laura. "I shall embroider her a tablecloth."
"You'll never finish it," said Patty, who well knew how soon Laura's bursts of enthusiasm spent themselves. "You'd better decide on a doily. Better a doily done than a tablecloth but begun."
"Oh, I'll tell you-what we can do, girls," said Polly Stevens. "Let's make Patty a tea-cloth, and we'll each write our name on it, and then embroider it, you know."
"Lovely!" cried Christine. "Just the thing. Who'll hemstitch it? I won't. I'll embroider my name all right, but I hate to hemstitch."
"I'll hemstitch it," said Elsie Morris. "I do beautiful hemstitching."
"So do I," said Helen Preston. "Let me do half."
"Ethel and I hemstitch like birds," said Lillian Desmond. "Let's each do a side,—there'll be four sides, I suppose."
"Well, the tea-cloth seems in a fair way to get hemstitched," said Patty. "You can put a double row around it, if you like, and I'll be awfully glad to have it. I'll use it the first Saturday afternoon after I get settled."
"I wish I knew where you're going to live," said Ethel. "I'd like to have a correct mental picture of that first Saturday afternoon."
"It's a beautiful day for walking," said Polly Stevens. "Let's all go out, and take a look at the Warner place. Something tells me that you'll decide to live there."
"I hope something else will tell you differently, soon," said Marian, "for I'll never give my consent to that arrangement. However, I'd just as lieve walk out there, if only to convince you what a forlorn old place it is."
"Come on; let's go, then. We can be back in an hour, and have tea afterwards. I'll get the key from Mr. Martin, as we go by."
Like a bombarding army the Tea Club stormed the old Warner house, and once inside its Colonial portal, they made the old walls ring with their laughter. The wide hall was dark and gloomy until Elsie Morris flung open the door at the other end, and let in the December sunshine.
"Seek no farther," she cried dramatically. "We have crossed the Rubicon and found the Golden Fleece! This is the place of all others for our Tea Club meeting, and it doesn't matter what the rest of the house may be like. Patty, you will kindly consider the matter settled."
"I'll consider anything you like," said Patty; "and before breakfast, too, if you'll only hurry up and get out of this damp, musty old place. I'm shivering myself to pieces."
"Oh, it isn't cold," said Laura Russell; "and while we're here, let's go through the house."
"Yes," said Marian; "examine it carefully, lest some of its numerous advantages should escape your notice. Observe the hardwood floors, the magnificent mahogany stair-rail, and the lofty ceilings!"
The old floors were creaky, worm-eaten, and dusty; the stair-rail was in a most dilapidated condition, and the ceilings were low and smoky; so Marian scored her points.
"But it is antique," said Ethel Holmes, with the air of an auctioneer. "Ah, ladies, what would you have? It is a fine specimen of the Colonial Empire period, picked out here and there with Queen Anne. The mantels, ah,—the mantels are dreams in marble."
"Nightmares in painted wood, you mean," said Lillian.
"But so roomy and expansive," went on Ethel. "And the wall-papers! Note the fine stage of complete dilapidation left by the moving finger of Time."
"The wall-papers are all right," said Patty. "They look as if they'd peel off easily. Come on upstairs."
The chambers were large, low, and rambling; and the house, in its best days, must have been an interesting specimen of its type. But after a short investigation, Patty was as firmly convinced as Marian that its charms could not offset its drawbacks.
"I've seen enough of this moated grange," cried Patty. "Come on, girls, we're going back to tea, right, straight, smack off."
"There's no pleasing some folks," grumbled Ethel. "Here's an ancestral pile only waiting for somebody to ancestralise it. You could make it one of the Historic Homes of Vernondale, and you won't even consider it for a minute."
"I'll consider it for a minute," said Patty, "if that will do you any good, but not a bit longer; and as the minute is nearly up, I move we start."
CHAPTER IV
BOXLEY HALL
After consultation with various real estate agents, and after due consideration of the desirable houses they had to offer, Mr. Fairfield came to the conclusion that the Bigelow house, which Marian had suggested, was perhaps the most attractive of any.
And so, one afternoon, a party of very interested people went over to look at it.
The procession was headed by Patty and Marian, followed by Mr. Fairfield and Aunt Alice, while Frank and his father brought up the rear. But as they were going out of the Elliotts' front gate, Laura Russell came flying across the street.
"Where are all you people going?" she cried. "I know you're going to look at a house. Which one?"
"The Bigelow house," said Marian, "and I'm almost sure Uncle Fred will decide to take it. Come on with us; we're going all through it."
"No," said Laura, looking disappointed, "I don't want to go; and I don't want the Fairfields to live in that house anyway. If they would only look at that little cottage next-door to us, I know they'd like it ever so much better. Oh, please, Mr. Fairfield, won't you come over and look at it now? It's so pretty and cunning, and it has the loveliest garden and chicken-coop and everything."
"I don't want a chicken-coop," said Patty, laughing; "I've no chickens, and I don't want any."
"Our chickens are over there most of the time," said Laura.
"Then, of course, we ought to have a coop to keep our neighbours' chickens in," said Mr. Fairfield; "and if this cottage is as delightful as Miss Russell makes it out, I think it's our duty at least to go and look at it. If the rest of you are willing, suppose we go over there first, and then if we should decide not to take it, we'll have time to investigate the Bigelow afterward".
Marian looked so woe-begone that Patty laughed.
"Cheer up, girl," she said; "there isn't one chance in a million of our taking that doll's house, but Laura will never give us a minute's peace until we go and look at it; so we may as well go now, and get it over."
"All right," said Marian; and Patty, with her two girl friends on either side of her, started in the direction of the cottage.
But when they reached it, Mr. Fairfield exclaimed in amazement. "That little house?" he said. "Oh, I see; that's the chicken-coop you spoke of. Well, where is the house?"
"This is the house," said Laura; "but, somehow, it does look smaller
