“Here, opposite the entrance door. Then you see, one chimney in the middle of the house, will provide for a fireplace in each room. I’m not sure this will give you heat enough. If not, you must depend on gas logs. We can’t be bothered with a furnace of any sort. Perhaps in the very coldest weather you can’t inhabit your castle.”
“Oh, that won’t matter,” and Dolly’s good-natured face smiled brightly; “if we have it most of the time, we’ll willingly study somewhere else on extra cold days. And at one side of the fireplace, the door through to the dining-room—oh, yes, I see.”
“Right, my child. And on the other side of the fireplace, in the Study, a set of built-in bookshelves, and in the dining-room, a built-in glass closet.”
“But we haven’t any glass!” and Dotty looked amazed at the idea.
“Well, I dare say the mothers of you will scout around and give you some old junk from the attics. I know of a gorgeous dish you can have.” Mr. Rose’s eyes twinkled, and Dotty broke into laughter: “I know! you mean ‘The Eyesore’!”
This was a hideous affair that some one had sent Mrs. Rose as a Christmas Gift, and the family had long since relegated it to the oblivion of a dark cupboard. “No, thank you!” Dot went on, “I’d rather have things from the ten-cent store.”
“They have some awfully nice things there,” suggested Dolly, “and I know Mother has a lot of odds and ends we can have. Oh, when the house is built, it will be lots of fun to furnish it. Trudy will make us lovely table-covers and things like that. And we can have paper napkins for our spreads.”
“And Aunt Clara says she will make all the curtains,—whatever sort we want.”
“That’s lovely of her! I know we’ll have lots of things given to us, and we’ll find lots of things around our homes—and the rest we’ll do ourselves.”
“Yes, and Thomas will bring wood for us, and take away the ashes. We must have enormous wood-baskets or wood-boxes. Oh, it’s just like furnishing a real house! What loads of fun we’ll have!”