“Someone’s here!” whispered she to her friends.
Before anyone could reply, a buxom form filled the doorway and a wide grin almost cleft Rachel’s face in half. She held out both hands to Natalie, and her expression signified a welcome to her “Honey-Chile.”
“Why! Rachie! How did you get here? I left you at home!” exclaimed Natalie, not certain whether it was flesh and blood she saw, or a phantom.
“Diden I come by a short cut, Honey, an’ wa’n’t it a good joke on you-all to beat you to dis fahm!” laughed Rachel, delighting in the mystery.
“Oh, now I know! It was Rachel who is our friend, eh?” shouted Natalie, clapping her hands.
“Shore! Mr. Marwin done brung me in his speeder by d’ Hudson Riber Turnpike. We turned offen d’ main road afore we come t’ Dobb’s Ferry. Jus’ d’ udder side f’om Yonkers. Dat’s how we come so quick,” explained Rachel.
“Where is he? I want to thank him, Rachel!” cried Natalie, gratitude uppermost in her thought just then.
“You won’t have far to go to find me,” laughed a genial voice, and everyone turned to see Mr. Marvin standing behind them.
Then followed a visit indoors, with Mr. Marvin acting as guide from attic to cellar, and his party stringing out behind. Some loitered in a room, and then ran to catch up with the main guard. Or some lingered to admire a view or interesting object in the house, and hurried after the others later, for fear of missing something worth while.
The main hall ran from front to rear of the house, cutting it in half. On one side of the wide hallway was a “front parlor,” and back of it the back-parlor, or “settin’-room,” as the farmers called it. Across the hall was the dining-room and pantry, and leading from the pantry was the kitchen. These rooms were so spacious that Janet laughingly remarked: “Our entire apartment would go in one room.”