“I don’t see how it can be done,” said Beth.
“Then I’ll show you.” She was already picking her way gingerly across the public road. The girls were in their bare feet and the skin was yet tender. They stepped as carefully as they could, for the bits of gravel and sand could be cruel.
“This will be the drawing room,” cried Helen, moving quickly now that she had gained the greensward under the trees. “Then we’ll have a wide hall with a library on one side, a den, and right here will be the nursery.” She had been jumping about like a cricket from one place to another, locating the different apartments of the household.
“I’m not sure where I wish the dining-room. I’d like to have something pretty to look at while I’m eating.”
“Have it on this side and we can look at the trees and Adee’s flowers,” suggested Beth. She had played second in the game. She could not yet see how Helen could build such a large and elegant affair from nothing at all.
“That’s just the thing,” cried Helen. “We’ll play that the yard is the conservatory. Now, let’s put up the walls.”
“I don’t see how you can,” began Beth.
“Help me carry up these nice stones from the beach and you’ll see.”
She started down the bank, and Beth followed blindly with faith in Helen’s power to make something from nothing. For an hour they carried up small flat stones until they had quite a number piled together under the trees. All the while, their tongues had kept clacking like the shuttle of a machine.
“Now we’ll build. It’s going to be a gray stone mansion,” said Helen.