were thrown wide, letting in the sweet cold air;
under the magic of strong soap and good muscle the old wood-work shone
with cleanliness; the faded walls lost their melancholy. Harkness and
Williams hauled down a load of wood and piled it high by the back door;
Mrs. Lynch transformed the rusty stove into a shiny, efficient, eager
thing.

Williams, who was very clever and would have been a carpenter if he
hadn't been a chauffeur, built tables out of rough boards and, in the
living room, put up shelves for books and the window seat Robin wanted.

Robin and Beryl flew about in everyone's way, eager to help and generous
with advice.

"There, I'd say things were pretty nice," exclaimed Williams, at the end
of the sixth day of work, stepping back to survey with satisfaction the
chair he had made out of "odds and ends."

"But it doesn't look like what we want--yet!" Robin glanced about
dolefully. "It needs such a lot to make it homey. Where'll we ever get
it all?"

"Now, Miss Robin, Rome wasn't built in a day, as I ever heard of,"
protested Harkness, a smudge over his nose and two long nails between
his teeth. "I guess there's truck enough in the attic up there at the
Manor to fill this house and a dozen like it."

"Oh, Mr. Harkness, may we use it? Or--just borrow it until my aunt
returns? Can we?"

Harkness exchanged glances with Williams. Harkness knew that it had long
been Mrs. Budge's custom to make a two day trip to New York during the
week preceding Christmas. They could take advantage of her absence.

"Well, I guess we can borrow enough, Missy, to do." And no one thought
of smiling at his "we" for, indeed, everyone there felt that he or she
had a share in Robin's House of Laughter.

But even stripping the Manor attic of its "truck" did not satisfy Robin
and the day before Christmas found her House of Laughter lacking in the
things she wanted most.

"It ought to have jolly pictures and ever so many books and pillows and
nice, frilly curtains," she mourned, wondering how much they would cost
and how she could ever get them.

On Christmas morning, Harkness dragged to Robin's door a box of gifts
from her guardian. Most of them Miss Effie had selected, as poor
Cornelius Allendyce was still confined to his room, and that
good-hearted woman had, with a burst of real Christmas spirit, simply
duplicated each gift, for, though she wasn't at all sure, yet, that this
"companion" of Robin's choosing was the refined sor