tly a neat pile of white curtains, the hems
all turned ready for stitching, lay in the wide back window-seat. Then
they went at the other rooms, the sun-porch room and the dining-room.
But before that was quite finished a large furniture-truck arrived,
and behold the sewing-machine had come! Leslie was so eager to get at
it that she could hardly wait until the rest of the load was properly
disposed.

She was not an experienced sewer, but she brought to her work an
enthusiasm that stood loyally beside her aunt's experience, and soon
some of the curtains were up.

They could not bear to stop and go back to the inn for lunch; so
Allison ran down to the pie-shop with the car, and brought back buns
cut into halves and buttered, with great slices of ham in them, a pail
of hot sweetened coffee, a big cocoanut pie, a bag of cakes and a
basket of grapes; and they made a picnic of it.

"Our first meal in our own house! Isn't it great?" cried Leslie,
dancing around with a roll sandwich in one hand and a wedge of pie in
the other.

By night every clean little window in that many-windowed house was
curtained with white drapery, and in some rooms also with inner
curtains of soft silk. The house began to look cozy in spite of its
emptiness, and they could hardly bear to leave it when sunset warned
them that it was getting near dinner-time and they must return to the
inn to freshen up for the evening.

Another day at the little house completed the cleaning and curtaining,
and by this time all the furniture so far purchased had arrived, and
they had no need to be there to watch for anything else; so another
day of shopping was agreed upon.

"And I move we pick out the piano first of all," said Leslie. "I'm
just crazy to get my fingers on the keys again, and you don't know how
well Allison can sing, Cloudy. You just ought to hear him. Oh, boy!"

Julia Cloud smiled adoringly at the two, and agreed that the piano was
as good a place as any to begin.

That day was the best of all the wonderful shopping to Julia Cloud. To
be actually picking out wonderful mahogany furniture such as she had
seen occasionally in houses of the rich, such as she had admired in
pictures and read of in magazine articles, seemed too wonderful to be
true. For the first time in her life she was to live among beautiful
things, and she felt as if she had stepped into at least the anteroom
of heaven. It troubled her a little to be allowing the children to
spe