"He won't be there. I've arranged for Aunt Phoebe to take him off for the day. The key to the house has been left hanging on the back porch."
"Does she know?"
"She doesn't, for I thought it was best for her to be able to say she didn't know a thing about it. But she suspects that something's in the wind."
Priscilla hesitated. "I suppose your idea is—"
"My idea is to make such a looking floor that he will be only too glad to buy a carpet to cover it."
The three girls looked at one another, and then Ruth gave a little nervous giggle. After a minute Priscilla joined in. And then all three leaned back in the seats in a paroxysm of silent laughter, while their fellow passengers regarded them enviously.
"Well, I don't know but you're right about Peggy," admitted Priscilla, at length, wiping her eyes. "I'm pretty sure she would not have approved."
"I think it serves him just right," declared Ruth. "I detest stingy people."
"It does serve him right," said Amy. "He has plenty of money, but he hates to part with any of it. Poor Aunt Phoebe has a little money of her own, and before she married him she got no end of fun out of doing things for other people. And now the dear old soul can't even treat her friends to strawberries without being humiliated. Anyway," concluded Amy with decision, "I'm bound she shall have a carpet for her living room next winter."
They found the farm house on the hill silent and deserted, the back door locked, and the key hanging in such plain view that it seemed an invitation to enter. Indoors they found the living room made ready against their coming. All the furniture had been moved into adjoining rooms and the floor had been given an extra and quite unnecessary scrubbing.