"About like that," said Claire, measuring off a space the size of a commercial envelope.
"Well, I think I never heard anything so mysterious and exciting. I should think you would just go around waiting to have someone give you some wonderful present just so you could have the fun of giving them the box so you could see what is inside."
"Dad says there is a catch about it somewhere, that people like ourselves do not go around giving presents beyond price and that it is exactly like a Chinaman to do something like that. The box, I mean. All sorts of queer things happen in China."
"Tell me some more about what you did over there," begged Rosanna. "I suppose we ought to go to bed, but I am so excited that I don't feel as though I could ever sleep again."
So, curling up in a big chair, Claire told Rosanna stories of the strange, mysterious East. Rosanna, thinking how very, very soon she too would see that strange side of the world, sat shivering with delight. Claire talked on and on. She was a good story-teller and everything was as clear and real as though they were wandering hand and hand down those strange and ancient ways.
Then Claire skipped lightly out of China into Honolulu, and thrilled Rosanna with pictures of that fairy island of Hawaii. Rosanna forgot China, forgot the mysterious box as though they had been wiped quite neatly out of her mind.
"Oh, I'm CRAZY to go there!" she cried finally. "It must be too lovely!"
"It is," declared Claire, and started off on a description of the wonderful bathing at Wakiki, when:
"Well, well, what's this?" rumbled in the door.
Both girls shrieked and jumped and stared wildly at Colonel Maslin, standing in the doorway.