"Er—what a lovely big, sunny room," interrupted Dorothy hastily, so hastily that Susan threw a sharp glance into her face to see if she were really interrupting Mazie for a purpose. "I love big rooms."
"Yes, so do I," chimed in Mazie. "And I always wanted to see the inside of this house, too."
"What for?" Keith's curiosity got the better of his vexed reticence, and forced the question from his lips.
"Oh, just 'cause I've heard folks say 'twas so wonderful—old, you know, and full of rare old things, and there wasn't another for miles around like it. But I don't see—That is," she corrected herself, stumbling a little, "you probably don't keep them in this room, anyway."
"Why, they do, too," interfered Dorothy, with suddenly pink cheeks. "This room is just full of the loveliest kind of old things, just like the things father is always getting—only nicer. Now that, right there in the corner, all full of drawers—We've got one almost just exactly like that out home, and father just dotes on it. That IS a—a highboy, isn't it?" she appealed to Susan. "And it is very old, isn't it?"
"A highboy? Old? Lan' sakes, child," laughed Susan. "Maybe 'tis. I ain't sayin' 'tisn't, though I'm free to confess I never heard it called that. But it's old enough, if that's all it needs; it's old enough to be a highMAN by this time, I reckon," chuckled Susan. "Mr. Burton was tellin' me one day how it belonged to his great-grand-mother."
"Kind of funny-looking, though, isn't it?" commented Mazie.
"Father'd love it, so'd Aunt Hattie," avowed Dorothy, evidently not slow to detect the lack of appreciation in Mazie's voice. "And I do, too," she finished, with a tinge of defiance.
Mazie laughed.
"Well, all right, you may, for all I care," she retorted. Then to Keith she turned with sudden disconcerting abruptness: "Say, Keith, what do you do all day?"