But Allison and Leslie had no such reverence for them; and they swept away gayly, and slammed them about familiarly, in a happy hurry to get them in place. So presently the big blue Chinese rug covered the living-room, almost literally; for it was an immense one, and left very little margin around it. A handsome Kermanshah in old rose and old gold with pencillings of black was spread forth under the mahogany dining-table, and a rich dark-red and black Bokhara runner fitted the porch-room as if it had been bought for it. The smaller rugs were quickly disposed here and there, a lovely little rose-colored silk prayer rug being forced upon Julia Cloud for her bedroom as just the finishing touch it needed, and Leslie took possession of two or three smaller blue rugs for her room. Then they turned their attention to pictures, bits of jade and bronze, a few rare pieces of furniture, a wonderful old bronze lamp with a great dragon on a sea of wonderful blue enamel, with a shade that cast an amber light; brass andirons and fender, and a lot of other little things that go to make a lovely home.
“Now,” said Allison, “when we get our books unpacked, and some magazines thrown around, it will look like living. Cloudy, can we sleep here to-night?”
“Why, surely,” said Julia Cloud with a child-like delight in her eyes. “What’s to hinder? I feel as if I was in a dream, and if I didn’t go right on playing it was true I would wake up and find it all gone.”
So they rode back to the inn for their supper, hurried their belongings into the trunk, and moved bag 179 and baggage into the new house at nine o’clock on Saturday night.
While Leslie and her aunt were up-stairs putting away their clothes from the trunk into the new closets and bureau-drawers, Allison brought in a few kindlings, and made a bit of a fire on the hearth; and now he called them down.
“We’ve got to have a housewarming the first night, Cloudy,” he called. “Come down and see how it all looks in the firelight.”
So the two came down-stairs, and all three sat together on the deep-blue velvet settee in front of the fireplace, Julia Cloud in the middle and a child on either side.
They were all very tired and did not say much, just sat together happily, watching the wood blaze up and flicker and fall into embers. Presently both children nestled closer to her, and put down a head on each of her shoulders. So they sat for a long time quietly.
“Now,” said Julia Cloud, as the fire died down and the room grew dusky with shadows, “it is time we went to bed. But there is something I wish we could do this first night in our new home. Don’t you think we ought to dedicate it to God, or at least thank God for giving it to us? Would you be willing to kneel down with me, and––we might just all pray silently, if you don’t feel like praying out loud. Would you be willing to do that?”
There was a tender silence for a moment while the children thought.