“Betty,” said Madeline severely, “what is the matter with you? You ought to be dancing around on one foot in your childish glee. You’re not a practical person. You weren’t, I mean, when I knew you.”
“She’s growing up, silly,” Mary Brooks answered, with an arm around Betty. “And it’s very lucky she is, if you’re going into this thing seriously. Now you telephone your riding-man to see who owns this stable, and then we can make sure it’s not already rented again, and that the rent isn’t beyond you. And if everything is all right so far, Betty and I will go and look the place over in the true scientific spirit. You and Babbie can come along if you like, but I don’t consider it necessary.”
“Hear the experienced-housekeeper-wife-of-an-experimental psychologist talk!” jeered Madeline. “Run along and cast your evil eye on my scheme if you want to. But it will work, practical or not practical. It’s simply too lovely not to work.”
“I adore your logic, Madeline,” declared Mary admiringly. “You’d better come too, after all.”
So, first having assured themselves about the rent, the four set out. Babbie sniffed daintily as they went inside.
“Everything is to be varnished over,” Madeline explained, “walls, floor, everything. Some of the rough places should be planed down a little, but we’ll leave the dents alone. It will be a stunning effect in the lamplight—quite like an old English castle.”
“The stalls are too narrow for two rows of chairs and a reasonably wide table,” announced Mary, from the depths of one of them. “The romantic couples will knock plates.”
“Then don’t have chairs. Build in benches on the sides, and take away the mangers in some stalls to make more room for big parties who prefer to be by themselves—the getting-into-societies celebrations and all that kind of thing.”
“That sounds possible. Now about the kitchen,” pursued Mary. “Betty, come and look at this harness-room again. I believe it might do. There’s running water here and——”
Babbie sat down on the steps leading to the loft. “I’ve only said ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ so far, like the chorus in a Greek play, but just watch me work at getting us started. And I may have a bright thought some day.”