rner cupboard out there
too, with leaded glass doors, two old solid wooden armchairs, and a
funny old chest of drawers with a writing desk in place of the top
drawer, all full of yellow old letters and trash. I found it under a
pile of old carpet. Then there's a washstand, and also a towel rack up
in the garret, and the funniest old table with three claw legs, and a
tippy top. One leg is broken off, but I hunted around and found it,
and I guess we can fix it on. And there are two more old chairs and a
queer little oval table with a cracked swing mirror on it."

"I have it," exclaimed Sara, with a burst of inspiration, "let us fix
up a real old-fashioned room for Aunt Josephina. It won't do to put
anything modern with those old things. One would kill the other. I'll
put Mother's rag carpet down in it, and the four braided mats Grandma
Sheldon gave me, and the old brass candlestick and the Irish chain
coverlet. Oh, I believe it will be lots of fun."

It was. For a week the Sheldons hammered and glued and washed and
consulted. The north room was already papered with a blue paper of an
old-fashioned stripe-and-diamond pattern. The rag carpet was put down,
and the braided rugs laid on it. The old bedstead was set up in one
corner and, having been well cleaned and polished with beeswax and
turpentine, was really a handsome piece of furniture. On the washstand
Sara placed a quaint old basin and ewer which had been Grandma
Sheldon's. Ray had fixed up the table as good as new; Sara had
polished the brass claws, and on the table she put the brass tray, two
candlesticks, and snuffers which had been long stowed away in the
kitchen loft. The dressing table and swing mirror, with its scroll
frame of tarnished gilt, was in the window corner, and opposite it was
the old chest of drawers. The cupboard was set up in a corner, and
beside it stood the spinning-wheel from the kitchen loft. The big
grandfather clock, which had always stood in the hall below was
carried up, and two platters of blue willow-ware were set up over the
mantel. Above them was hung the faded sampler that Grandma Sheldon had
worked ninety years ago when she was a little girl.

"Do you know," said Sara, when they stood in the middle of the room
and surveyed the result, "I expected to have a good laugh over this,
but it doesn't look funny after all. The things all seem to suit each
other, some way, and they look good, don't they? I mean they look
_real_, clear throu