“I’m listening!” Nann replied briskly. “I rather like it. It’s so sort of appropriate. You know, at the movies, when the Indians come on, the weird Indian music always begins. Now, that’s the way with the fog.”
She paused to scratch a match, applied the flame to the oil-saturated wick of a small glass lamp and stood back admiringly. “There, friend o’ mine,” she exclaimed, “isn’t that cheerful?”
Dories, instead of looking at the circle of light about the lamp, looked at the wavering shadows in the corners, then at the heavy gray fog which hung like curtains at the windows. She huddled closer to the stove. “If this place spells cheerfulness to you,” she remarked, “I’d like to know what would be dismal.”
Nann whirled about and faced her friend and for a moment she was serious.
“I’m going to preach,” she threatened, “so be prepared. I haven’t the least bit of use in this world for people who are mercurial. What right have we to mope about and create a dismal atmosphere in our homes, just because we can’t see the sunshine. We know positively that it is shining somewhere, and we also know that the clouds never last long. I call it superlative selfishness to be variable in disposition. Pray, why should we impose our doleful moods on our friends?”
Then, noting the downcast expression of her friend, Nann put her arms about her as she said penitently, “Forgive me, dear, if I hurt your feelings. Of course it is dismal here and we could be just miserable if we wanted to be, but isn’t it far better to think of it all as an adventure, a merry lark? We know perfectly well that there is no such thing as a ghost, but the setting for one is so perfect we just can’t resist the temptation to pretend that——”
Nann said no more for something had suddenly banged in the loft room over their heads.
Dories sat up with a start, but Nann laughed gleefully. “You see, even the ghost knows his cue,” she declared. “He came into the story just at the right moment. He can’t scare me, however,” Nann continued, “for I know exactly what made the bang. When I was upstairs I noticed that the blind to the front window had come unfastened, and now that the night wind is rising, the two conspired to make us think a ghost had invaded our chamber.” Then, having placed a lighted lamp on the kitchen table and another on a shelf near the stove, the optimistic girl whirled and with arms akimbo she exclaimed, “Mistress Dori, what will we have for supper? You forage in the supply cupboard and bring forth your choice. I vote for hot chocolate!”
“How would asparagus tips do on toast?” This doubtfully from the girl peering into a closet where stood row after row of bags and cans.
“Great!” was the merry reply. “And we’ll have canned raspberries and wafers for desert.”