"Oh, yes, she will! They are hanging in the hall."
Minnie peeped out of window, and in another moment Alice, dressed in some style, emerged from the door, ran down the steps, and was admitted to the next house.
"Must I go on with school?" asked Minnie rather forlornly.
"No; to-day is too good a day for it not to be a holiday. Clear up the books, Minnie, and surprise Alice."
Minnie did not need twice telling; and then she and Agnes went upstairs to prepare their parents' room, to see that the new Jane made a nice fire, and that everything was well aired and ready.
While they were busy Alice came back from next door with a long, heavy roll in her arms.
"The hearthrug?" questioned Agnes.
"Yes. We are not to lay it down till everything is done and the room perfectly ready. Oh, it is a beauty! I never saw such a pretty rug."
Then at one o'clock the boys came home, and great were the laments that the travellers might arrive before they returned from afternoon school; but this had to be endured, and, as Alice suggested. "Perhaps, after all, they wouldn't."
Nor did they. The boys closed up with greater speed than they had ever done before, and raced home. As they turned the corner of their street a cab was rattling along in front of them, and, half-fearing and half-hoping, they set off to outstrip it, which they managed to do, and arrived too breathless to speak, but with glowing, happy faces, in time to open the cab door, just as a shout from Minnie at the window announced the fact of the arrival to those inside the house.