"How very quiet it is," Florence remarked, presently. "We can't hear a sound except the wind among the trees, and the robins singing. There doesn't seem to be a soul about. Who lives here, Dimple?"
"The Atkinsons. Mamma and papa know them."
"Are there any little children?"
"Not now; there used to be a little girl named Stella, but she died two years ago, and now there is only their eldest son living; he has just gone abroad with his mother. That is why it's so quiet. They are all away. You see the house is shut up."
"Ah, I wonder if they would mind if we went in and looked around. Do you think they would mind? I should love so to go and sit on that porch for a few minutes."
Dimple hesitated. She wasn't quite sure that it would be right for them to go in, especially when no one was at home.
"You know," Florence went on, "it would be just exactly the same as if we went there to call, and they should happen to be out. It won't hurt anybody or anything for us to walk around and look at the grounds."
At last Dimple consented. So they lifted the latch of the gate and shut it behind them very gingerly.
"Do you often come here?" asked Florence, when they had made their tour of the grounds and were sitting on the porch in the shadow of the vines.
"Not so very often, but I have been here with mamma when she came to call. I remember Stella very well. She died of diphtheria, and they have a lovely portrait of her. She was such a pretty little girl, and the portrait shows her with a great big dog she used to have."