ll is overdue; but we'll manage."

It was on the tip of Rosemary's tongue to tell her about the money
Sarah had, but she stopped in time and sent Shirley a warning glance.
That pleasure belonged to Sarah and no one should take it from her.

"Will you come upstairs a moment, Rosemary?" asked Louisa, "I want to
show you something. Let Shirley play with Kitty in the yard."

The two girls went up the steep, straight stairs and Louisa took her
guest into one of the front rooms.

"Mr. Robinson said his wife would be out to get acquainted with us
soon," Louisa explained, "and of course she'll have to stay all night.
And where, I ask you, Rosemary, is she to sleep?"

"Why I don't know, dear," replied Rosemary, smiling. "What is the
matter with this room?"

She looked about it as she spoke. It was a large, square room, very
clean and, it must be confessed, very bare. There was a bureau, one
leg missing and the lack supplied by a brick; one chair, the bed and a
little table (not large enough to be useful and not small enough to be
dainty) completed the furnishings.

"It looks so awful," said poor Louisa. "And of course I can't buy
material for curtains; Mother used to say that curtains softened a room
and helped to furnish it. But I certainly am thankful for one thing."

"What?" Rosemary asked.

"That I've always saved one pair of Mother's good sheets and her best
light blankets and two pillow cases, real linen ones," said Louisa.
"When the linen began to wear out, I patched it and darned it as well
as I could, but our sheets last winter were made of flour sacks,
stitched together. They're white as snow for I bleached them, but I
wouldn't want to have Mr. Robinson's wife sleep on flour sack sheets."

"Oh, my, of course not," said the sympathetic Rosemary.

"She won't have to," declared Louisa with satisfaction. "Much as I
have wanted to use these sheets and the blankets, I've kept them put
away. They are linen Mother had when she was married and I never could
afford to buy any like it now."

"That's fine," said Rosemary, a trifle absently.

She was studying the windows, three placed close together on one side
of the room.

"Do you know, Louisa," she said slowly, "I believe we could make
curtains for those windows--just straight side-drapes, you understand,
with a plain valance across the top."

"I've seen pictures," Louisa admitted, "but I haven't any material."

"I could get it," Rosemary began, but L