Smuggling the house-cleaning paraphernalia into the cellar window, unobserved, that afternoon, proved no easy task, for Cynthia had added a whisk-broom and dust-pan to the outfit. Joyce came to the fray with an old broom and a dust-cloth, which latter she thought she had carefully concealed under her sweater. But a long end soon worked out and trailed behind her unnoticed, till Goliath, basking on the veranda steps, spied it. The lure proved too much for him, and he came sporting after it, as friskily as a young kitten, much to Cynthia's delight when she caught sight of him.
"Oh, let him come along!" she urged. "I do love to see him about that old house. He makes it sort of cozier. And, besides, he seems to belong to it, anyway. You know he discovered it first!" And so Goliath followed into the Boarded-up House.
They began on the drawing-room. Before they had been at work very long, they found that they had "let themselves in" for a bigger task than they had dreamed. Added to that, performing it by dim candle-light did not lessen its difficulties, but rather increased them tenfold. First they took turns sweeping, as best they could, with a very ancient and frowsy broom, the thick, moth-eaten carpet. When they had gone over it once, and taken up what seemed like a small cart-load of dust, they found that, after all, there remained almost as much as ever on the floor. Cynthia was for going over it again.
"Oh, never mind it!" sighed Joyce. "My arms ache and so do yours. We'll do it again another time. Now let's dust the furniture and pictures." And they fell to work with whisk-broom and dust-cloths. Half an hour later, exhausted and grimy, they dropped into chairs and surveyed the results. It was, of course, as but a drop in the bucket, in comparison with all the scrubbing and cleaning that was needed. Yet, little as it was, it had already made a vast difference in the aspect of the room. Surface dust at least had been removed, and the fine old furniture gave a hint of its real elegance and polish. Joyce glanced at the big hanging candelabrum and sighed with weariness. Then she suddenly remarked:
"Cynthia, we have the dimmest light here with only those two candles! Why not have some more burning?"
"We've only three left," commented Cynthia, practical as ever. "And my pocket-money is getting low again, and you haven't any left, as usual. So we'd better economize till allowance day!"
"Tell you what!" cried Joyce, freshly inspired. "I've the loveliest idea! Don't you just long to know what this room would look like with that big candelabrum going? I do. They say illumination by candle-light is the prettiest in the world. Sometime I'm going to buy enough wax candles to fill that whole chandelier—or candelabrum rather—and we'll light it just once and see how it makes things look. What do you say?"
"It'll cost you a good deal more than a dollar," remarked Cynthia, after an interval spent in calculation. "Of course I'd like to see it too, so I'll go halves with you on the expense. And I don't believe we can get nice wax candles, only penny tallow ones. But they'll have to do. I wonder, though, if people could see the light from the street, through any chinks in the boarding?"
"Of course not," said Joyce. "Don't you see how all the inside shutters are closed and the velvet curtains drawn? It isn't possible. Then we'll have the illumination for a treat, sometime, and I'll begin to save up for it. And I hope before that time we'll have puzzled out this mystery. I'm afraid we aren't very good detectives, or we'd have done it long before this. Sherlock Holmes would have!"