The top of the terrace was pink-tiled, too, and all the porches were paved with tiles. The house itself seemed filled with windows all around. Allison unlocked the door, and they exclaimed with pleasure as he threw it wide open and they stepped in. The sunshine was flooding the great living-room from every direction, it seemed. To begin with, the room was very large, and gave the effect of being a sun-parlor because of its white panelled walls and its many windows. Straight across from the front door on the opposite side of the room opened a small hallway or passage with stairs leading up to a platform where more windows shed a beautiful light down the stairs on walls papered with strange tropical birds in delicate old-fashioned tracery.
To the right through a wide white arch from the living-room was a charming white dining-room with little, high, leaded-paned windows over the spot for the sideboard and long windows in front.
To the left was an enormous stone fireplace with high mantel-shelf of stone and the chimney above. The fire-opening was wide enough for an old Yule log, and on either side of it were double glass doors opening into a long porch room, which also had a fireplace on the opposite side of the chimney, and was completely shut in by long casement windows.
Up-stairs there were four large bedrooms and a little hall room that could be used for a sewing-room or den, or an extra bedroom, besides a neat little maid’s room in a notch on the half-way landing, and two bathrooms, white-tiled and delightful, tucked away in between things. Then Leslie opened a glass door in the very prettiest room of all, which she and Allison immediately 118 decided must belong to their aunt, and exclaimed in delight; for here nestled between the gables, with a tiled wall all about it, was a delightful housetop or uncovered porch, so situated among the trees that it was entirely shut in from the world.
It was perfect! They stood and looked at one another in delight, and for the time the college was forgotten. Then Allison dashed away, and came back eagerly almost immediately.
“There’s a garage!” he said, “just behind the kitchen, a regular robin’s nest of a one, white with pink tiles just like the house, and a pebbled drive. Say, it must be some fool of a guy that would sell this. Isn’t it just a crackerjack?”
“My dear,” put in Julia Cloud, “it can’t help being very expensive–––”
“Now, Cloudy, remember!” said Leslie, holding up her finger in mock rebuke. “Just wait and see! And, anyhow, you don’t know Guardy Lud. If he could see us located in a peach of a home like this, he’d go back to his growley old dear of a wife with happy tears rolling down his nice old cheeks. Allison, you go talk to that agent, and you give him a hundred dollars if you’ve got it left––here, I guess I’ve got some, too––just to bind the bargain till Guardy gets here. And say, you go see if you can’t get Guardy on the ’phone. I don’t want to go a step farther. Couldn’t you be happy here, Cloudy, with that fireplace, and that prayer meeting to go to? I wouldn’t mind going with you sometimes when I didn’t have to study.”
Julia Cloud stooped, and kissed the eager face, and whispered, “Very happy, darling!”