open the door.

[Illustration: "PAUSING IN HER SCRUBBING"]

"Honey," said Mam Daphne, pausing in her scrubbing as Claribel came
into the kitchen for a hot iron, "I'se been studyin' ovah you-all's
case right smaht, lately. You'se done had to move out'n de front o' de
house, count o' de roof leakin', an' you shet up de west wing, so many
windows was broke. Soon you-all will be movin' into de kitchen. Why
don't you sell this great place fo' it goes clean to destruction, an'
buy a little cottage jes' big enough fo' you three chillun? You'd be
so much more comf'table."

"Sell _Marchmont_, Mam Daphne," cried Claribel. "Why, it has never
belonged to any one but a Mason since the days of Boone! Besides," she
explained, with the consideration they had always shown their mother's
old nurse, "there'll be no need for it when sister's book is
published. Last spring, when the _Southern Sentinel_ gave her their
book reviewing to do every week, we discovered that she had been at
work for years on a novel of her own. When that is published she is
going to take us to the city every winter. She'll be so rich and
famous then we'll meet all the lions and people worth knowing. Wilma
and I will study designing and take painting lessons, and we'll go to
parties and concerts and have as many beaux as mamma had when she was
young. And, best of all, we'll repair Marchmont, and you are to come
and live with us again. That is part of sister's plan."

Mam Daphne listened with a look of incredulous wonder on her old face.

"Aw, go 'long, honey, you'se a-foolin' me!" she exclaimed, dipping her
brush into the suds again. But an eager voice in the doorway made her
look up to see the careworn face of the oldest sister.

"Yes, it's true, Mam Daphne," cried Agnes. "I am almost through, now,
and as soon as these noisy children are off to the picnic I shall
begin my last chapter. I am just in the mood for it, and I shall not
even stop to get any lunch."

"Then I'll leave you a devilled egg and a spice cake to nibble on,"
said Wilma, "for there won't be a crust of bread left in the house
when this lunch is taken out of it. I'm glad genius burns. What a
heavenly day this is going to be for all of us!"

As she spoke, they were startled by a loud bang of the knocker on the
big front door. Rarely in their remembrance had the great brass
griffin's head sent that hollow booming through the hall. Since they
had been living in the south wing the neighbour