ara, quickly. "But _I do_ mean to
be proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of the
name left."

"I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what
_shall_ we do about all those other great rooms? It will take ready
money to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere else
for a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?"

That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that she
did not speak at first.

"'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don't
believe there ever was a family that had so _much_ opening and
shetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goes
together again and snips our noses!"

"What _is_ a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A
mouse pinched in it, I should think."

"Exactly," replied Barbara. "The most expressive words are
fricassees,--heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see the
philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down
everything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn't
all made,--or used,--yet!"

Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance--in
aid, as she maintained--of the dictionaries.

"O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright out
there, and the mornings will be so early!"

"That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeing
we're going 'west over.'"

"Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," said
Ruth. That was the best she could do.

"Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to have
some of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put
down with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful.
Especially for a country house."

"It seems, then, we _are_ going?"

Nobody had even raised a question of that.

Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raised
none. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries,
quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of a
geometrical fact patent at first glance.

"We can have a cow," mother repeated.

"Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get a
hearing.

"You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to the
parcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen."

"I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely.

"I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. An