“Well, you might make a beginning,” suggested Ruth. “Come, Aggie. Don’t moon there all day.”
“I’m not,” said her next youngest sister. “I’m thinking.”
“What’s the difference?” demanded Neale, filling his arms with several of the things indicated by Ruth and making for the door.
“I was thinking,” said Agnes, quite seriously for her, “what a difference this is from what we were before we came to Milton and the old Corner House to live.”
Neale had gone out. Ruth looked at her with softer eyes. Ruth was not exactly pretty, but she had a very sweet face. Everybody said so. Now she looked her understanding at Agnes.
“I know, dear—I know,” she said, in her low, full, sweet voice. “This is like another world.”
“Or a dream,” said Agnes. “Do—do you suppose we’ll ever wake up, Ruthie, and find out it’s all been make-believe?”
Ruth laughed outright at that and went over and kissed her. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” the older sister said. “It is all real—very real indeed. What could be more real than an automobile—and of our very own?”
Dot came dancing into the room hugging a doll in her arms and cheerfully humming a school song.
“There!” exclaimed Agnes, coming out of the clouds, “I suppose that disreputable Alice-doll has got to go along. It does look awful.”