Mrs. O'Neil—in the capacity of the layman left to represent the monks flown—replied that she had found all as bare as now.
"Well, you told the truth, Nellie," her friend remarked; "there's the hair-brush and here's the mirror. But where are the knives?"
Mrs. O'Neil pulled open the upper drawer, and in one corner lay the roll of red flannel.
Mrs. Ray unrolled the knives and examined them with care. A case-knife is rather limited as to its power of revelation, however, and she soon laid them down.
"Well, I never!" she said, with heaviest emphasis.
"What do they sleep in, or wash with?" Mrs. O'Neil suggested.
"The towels are yours, of course, Nellie?"
"Of course."
Lassie looked around the simple bedroom with its absolute bareness. She felt pitiful.
"They're comin' over the post-office hill!" Mary Cody suddenly yelled below. The effect was magical.