At that moment the derrick of which Bobs had spoken emptied a great bucket of coal with a deafening roar, and a wind blowing from the river sent the cloud of black dust hurling toward them.
“Quick! Duck inside!” Bobs cautioned, as they all leaped within and closed the door with a bang.
“Jimminy-crickets!” she then ejaculated, using her favorite tom-boy expression. “The man who has this place to rent can’t advertise it as clean and quiet, a good place for nervous people to recuperate.” Then with a wry face toward her older sister. “I can’t imagine Gwen in this house, can you?”
There was a sudden troubled expression in Gloria’s eyes. “No, dear, I can’t. And I’m wondering, in fact I have often been wondering this morning, if we ought not to select some place where Gwen and little Lena May would be happier, for, of course, Gwen can’t keep on visiting her friends forever. She will have to come home some day.” The speaker felt a hand slip into hers and, glancing down, she saw a pleading in the uplifted eyes of their youngest. “I’d like to live here, Glow, for a while, if you would.”
“Little self-sacrificing puss that you are.” Gloria smiled at Miss Selenski, then said: “May we look over the old house and decide if we wish to take it? Time is passing and we have much packing to do if we are to return in another day or two.”
Although she did not say so, Bobs and Lena May knew that their mothering sister was eager to return to their Long Island home that she might see Gwendolyn before her departure.
The old colonial mansion, like many others of its kind, had a wide hall extending from the front to the back. At the extreme rear was a fireplace with built-in seats. In fact, to the great delight of Bobs, who quite adored them, a fireplace was found in each of the big barren rooms. Four of these were on that floor, with the old kitchen in the basement, and four vast silent rooms above, that had been bed chambers in the long ago. Too, there was an attic, which they did not visit.
When they had returned to the front hall, Bobs exclaimed: “We might rent just one floor of this mansion and then have room to spare.”
But the oldest sister looked dubious. “I hardly think it advisable to attempt to live in this place—” she began. “There is enough room here to home an orphanage, and the kiddies wouldn’t be crowded, either.”
Roberta was plainly disappointed. “Oh, I say, Glow, haven’t you always told us younger girls not to make hasty conclusions, and here you have hardly more than crossed the threshold and you have decided that we couldn’t make the old house livable. Now, I think this room could be made real cozy.”