She was bending forward, with her head at her knees, while Mrs. Bell shook out the clinging lumps from the tangle of hair in which they were caught.
"It's a quarter of ten," announced Rufus, cheerfully. "Do we have to clear this up to-night?"
"I should say so!" Ross caught up a broom.
"It's the least we can do. Get a box, will you, Rufe, and let's have the worst over. Pete and I will do the job, and the rest of you can go upstairs and dance a hornpipe over our heads. If you will throw things at us from time to time down the stairs it may relieve your feelings."
"Don't feel too badly. I had a notion all the time that that ceiling ought to have been pulled down before we papered the room; it looked old and shaky to me. Now we 'll have a new one that will stand pillow-fights as long as we live here," said Mrs. Bell, smiling at the rueful countenance of her nephew.
"Right you are, and I'll have a man here to put that plaster on in the morning, holiday or no holiday," promised Peter.
In ten minutes the plaster had been swept up, Jane's hair had received a thorough brushing, Mr. Bell had been relieved of several lumps which had worked their way down his back, and the family went to bed in as good spirits as if nothing had happened.
The next morning Peter started early in quest of a plasterer to restore the ceiling, and finding it by no means easy to discover one who cared to work when he might play, came home after two hours' search baffled but still determined. A passing acquaintance gave him a clue, and he was presently hurrying across the street in search of the Townsends' coachman, whose brother, the acquaintance had said, might be persuaded to do the job.
In the stables, much to his astonishment, he came fairly upon the girl whose propensity for losing things he had described with so much gusto the evening before.
"I beg your pardon," he said, quickly--he seemed to be always begging her pardon--"but I was looking for your coachman. I--he--I hoped he could tell me the name--that is, of course he knows the name--I mean, I wanted his brother's address."