On that last day of June, Nell had an inspiration, and, according to her wont, she acted upon it promptly.
“Do you know, Gertrude, I am disposed to think we might take a summer boarder, perhaps two, if they were willing to share one room,” she said, as they sat resting in low chairs out in the garden, after the day’s work was done.
“Is it necessary, dear? You have such heaps to do already,” Gertrude said, a little doubtfully, for Nell worked so hard that it scarcely seemed possible she could do more.
“It would be very pleasant to have a city-dweller with us for a few weeks, and might save us from becoming too hopelessly countryfied,” Nell answered, with a laugh; then added in a more serious tone, “The fact is, I heard of one to-day, and that is what made me decide, all in a great hurry, that a summer boarder is the one thing needed to make my happiness complete.”
“But where would you put the individual to sleep, Nell?” asked Flossie, who lay in a hammock stretched between the wall of the house and a straight young cedar, which by a happy chance had escaped the destruction when the ground was cleared.
“I fear we should have to turn Gertrude out. But if we offered her the hospitality of our loft, perhaps she wouldn’t mind very much,” Nell replied, with a low laugh. Her mood was very happy to-night, and the others quickly caught the infection of her good spirits.
“Oh, I love to sleep in the loft, only I hope you won’t put my bed close to the stove-pipe, if the weather is very warm. But where did you hear of your boarder, Nell?”
“Mrs. Peters came over this afternoon while you were in school. She had just had a letter from a lady living in Victoria, over in Vancouver, a Miss Alfreton, who wanted to know if she could be accommodated at Camp’s Gulch, because she said that her nephew, who was here last summer, had told her it was the loveliest place on earth.”
“Poor lady, how disappointed she will be!” murmured Gertrude, thinking of the bare little school-house and the ugly houses of the miners.
“The trees and the hills are beautiful, anyway,” broke in Flossie, in a tone of protest, not choosing to hear Camp’s Gulch despised even by insinuation.