The parents and Aunty Jane said it was a shame, but all agreed that there was nothing to be done. All were sorry to have the girls deprived of the cottage, for the mothers had certainly found it a relief to have their little daughters' leisure hours so safely and happily occupied. Mabel's mother was especially sorry.
Never was moving more melancholy nor house more forlorn when the moving, done after dark with great caution, and mostly through the dining-room window on the side of the house farthest from the Milligans, was finally accomplished. The Tucker boys had been only too delighted to help. By bedtime the cottage was empty of everything but the curtains on the Milligan side of the house. An hour later the tired girls were asleep; but under each pillow there was a handkerchief rolled in a tight, grimy little ball and soaked with tears.
In the morning, the girls returned for a last look, and for the remaining curtains. Dandelion Cottage, stripped of its furniture and without its pictures, showed its age and all its infirmities. Great patches of plaster and wall paper were missing, for the gay posters had covered a multitude of defects. The indignant Tucker boys had disobeyed Bettie and had removed not only the tin they had put on the leaking roof, but the steps they had built at the back door, the drain they had found it necessary to place under the kitchen sink, and the bricks with which they had propped the tottering chimneys.
Before the day was over, the tenants whom the Milligans had found for their own house were clamoring to move in, so the Milligans took possession of the cottage late that afternoon, getting the key from Mr. Downing, into whose keeping the girls had silently delivered it that morning. To do Mr. Downing justice, nothing had ever hurt him quite as much as did the dignified silence of the three pale girls who waited for a moment in the doorway, while equally pallid Jean went quietly forward to lay the key on his desk. He realized suddenly that not one of them could have spoken a word without bursting into tears; and for the rest of that day he hated himself most heartily.
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CHAPTER 17
Several Surprises Take Effect
Mr. Black opened the door of his hotel apartment in Washington one sultry noon in response to a vigorous, prolonged rapping from without. The bellboy handed him a telegram. When Mr. Black had read the long message he smiled and frowned, but cheerfully paid the three dollars and forty-one cents additional charges that the messenger demanded.