Without being at all sly, Janice did go about doing something for Amy Carringford with considerable shrewdness. She had never walked home with Amy from school. She did not like the purlieus of Mullen Lane. But this afternoon she attached herself to Amy with all the power of adherence of a mollusk, and they were chattering too fast to stop abruptly when they came to the comer of Knight Street, where usually Janice turned off.
Mullen Lane touched Love Street at its upper end, so Janice could go all the way to the Carringford house without going much out of her way. She went on with Amy, swinging her books; and at first Amy did not seem to notice that Janice was keeping with her right into the muddy, littered lane on which she lived.
"Why, Janice!" said Amy, finally, "you are away out of your way."
"Oh, I can go up the lane to Love Street," returned Janice carelessly, and just as though she were used to doing that.
Amy, who was a pretty, blonde girl, gazed at her companion rather curiously; but Janice was quite calm.
"That is the house where I live," said Amy, in a changed tone, as they came in sight of the cottage.
"Oh, yes," replied Janice.
Aside from the fact that the house needed paint and new window shutters, and a new roof, and new planks for the piazza, and numerous other things, it was not such a bad looking house. Janice noticed something at first glance: it was only things that poor people could not get or that a boy could not tinker that was needed about the Carringford house to make it neat and comfortable.
The fences were on the line, had been braced, and there were no pickets missing. The gates hung true. The walks were neatly kept and there were brilliant flower beds in front, for flower seeds cost little. What the Carringford could do to make the place homelike without spending money, had certainly been done.
"It's an awful place to live," ventured Amy, still gazing sidewise at Janice.