"Pop thinks some of 'em's queer, an' so does Bill Harmon."
Long silence, Nancy being utterly daunted.
"How did you come by your name, Lallie Joy?"
"Lallie's out of a book named Lallie Rook, an' I was born on the Joy steamboat line going to Boston."
"Oh, I thought Joy was Joy!"
"Joy Line's the only joy I ever heard of!"
There is no knowing how long this depressing conversation would have continued if the two girls had not heard loud calls from Gilbert upstairs. Lallie Joy evinced no surprise, and went on peeling potatoes; she might have been a sister of the famous Casabianca, and she certainly could have been trusted not to flee from any burning deck, whatever the provocation.
"Come and see what we've found, Digby and I!" Gilbert cried. "Come, girls; come, mother! We were stripping off the paper because Mr. Popham said there'd been so many layers on the walls it would be a good time to get to the bottom of it and have it all fresh and clean. So just now, as I was working over the mantel piece and Digby on the long wall, look in and see what we uncovered!"
Mrs. Carey had come from the nursery, Kitty and Julia from the garden, and Osh Popham from the shed, and they all gazed with joy and surprise at the quaint landscapes that had been painted in water colors before the day of wall paper had come.
Mr. Popham quickly took one of his tools and began on another side of the room. They worked slowly and carefully, and in an hour or two the pictures stood revealed, a little faded in color but beautifully drawn, with almost nothing of any moment missing from the scenes.