“Well! boys are some good, you must admit,” Agnes said to Ruth, for the oldest Corner House girl was inclined to be a carping critic of the “mere male.”
“All right. If he’s so awfully useful, just let him clear up all this mess on the carpet, and then dust the rugs. Mercy, Agnes!” exclaimed Ruth, “what a lot of this green stuff there is all over the floor.”
“Yes, I know,” admitted Agnes.
“And there is other rubbish, too. Look at this old book you brought down from the attic and flung in the corner.”
Ruth picked it up. It was heavy, and she carried it over to the broad window-seat on which she sat to open the “family album,” as Agnes had called it.
The latter and Neale, having brought in basket and broom, began to gather up the litter. Ruth became very still at the window with the old volume in her lap. The smaller girls were out of the room.
“What’s in the old thing—pictures?” asked Agnes of her elder sister.
“Ye—yes, pictures,” Ruth said hesitatingly.
“Must be funny ones,” chuckled Neale, “by the look of her face.”
Ruth did look serious as she sat there, turning the pages of the big, old volume. Had the others noticed particularly they would have seen that the countenance of the oldest Corner House girl had become very pale.