“Hey, Billy, pipe fitting going on! Come on and help! What do you think you are here for?” called Danny.
Mrs. Markle blushed again adorably.
“Oh, please go! I am mortified that I should have kept you chatting with me when they need you. You see sometimes I get just a teensy bit lonesome and long for the companionship of someone nearer my own age, just to talk foolishness to. My dear husband is so—so—deep and intellectual—not that you are not intelligent too—oh, ever so much so, but you don’t mind stooping to my foolish prattle.”
Billy went off to fitting pipes with quite a glow, around his generous, boyish heart.
“Poor little girl! I fancy she does get bored with such an old dry-as-dust as Markle must be. I’ll see if I can’t give her some good times.”
“Now do tell me something of what your plans are in this delightful place,” said Mrs. Markle, joining Josie and Elizabeth, who were busily engaged in unpacking more and more books, which Irene, seated on a low chair, was dusting and placing on the shelves.
“Well, this corner is our information bureau. These books are all of them different kinds of encyclopedias. Anybody who wants to know anything can come to us and we can come mighty near telling him or her what is wanted.”
“Where did you get such a collection, child? It is wonderful.”
“It was my father’s,” said Josie, with the look in her eyes that always came at mention of her father.
“Your father was the great detective, was he not?”