"Why, I don't know," said Shirley, hesitating. "You know she isn't strong, and she will worry about your lifting her."
"Oh Shirley, let her come," pleaded Carol. "We could all take hold and wheel the couch out here; you know the floor is real smooth since those new boards were put in, and there are good castors on the couch."
"Mother! Mother! You're coming out to supper!" they chorused, rushing back to the living-room; and before the invalid realized what was happening her couch was being wheeled carefully, gleefully into the brilliantly lighted dining-room, with Doris like a fairy sprite dancing attendance, and shouting joyously:
"Mudder's tumin' to suppy! Mudder's tumin' to suppy adin!"
The mother gazed in amazement at the royally spread table, so smothered in flowers that she failed to recognize the cracked old blue dishes.
"Children, I insist," she raised her voice above the happy din. "I insist on knowing immediately what all this means. Where are we, and what is this? A hotel? And who was the person who brought us here? I cannot eat anything nor stay here another minute until I know. People can't rent houses like this for ten dollars a month anywhere, and I didn't suppose we had come to charity, even if I am laid up for a few days."
Shirley could see the hurt in her mother's eyes and the quick alarm in her voice, and came around to her couch, smiling.
"Now, mother dear, we'll tell you the whole thing. It isn't a hotel we're in, and it isn't a house at all. It's only an old barn!"
"A barn!" Mrs. Hollister sat up on her couch alertly, and looked at the big bowl of roses in the middle of the table, at the soft, flowing curtains at the window and the great pot of Easter lilies on the little stand in front, and exclaimed, "Impossible!"
"But it is, really, mother, just a grand old stone barn! Look at the walls. See those two over there are just rough stones, and this one back of you is a partition made of common boards. That's only an old brown denim curtain over there to hide the kitchen, and we've got the old red chenille curtains up to partition off the bedrooms. The boys are going to sleep up in the hay-loft, and it's going to be just great!"