"Don't you trouble about a single thing more, granny, there are plenty of us to see to everything. The fire is burning, and your own armchair is put by it, and all you've got to do is to sit there till you're rested and tell us others what you'd like done."
Granny Barnes did not speak, but Lucy understood. She took up the poker and stirred the coals to a more cheerful blaze. "It's a fine little stove to burn," she said cheerfully, "and it is as easy as possible to light."
Granny was interested at once, "Is it? How beautiful and bright it is. Did you do that, Lucy?"
Lucy nodded. "I love polishing up a stove," she said with a smile, "it repays you so for the trouble you take. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, I used to spend hours over mine, but I don't seem to have the strength now. Mona does very well though. Where's Peter? Out fishing?"
"No, he's upstairs putting up your bed. He has nearly done. Mona's is up already. You've got a sweet little room, Mona. You'll love it, I know."
Mona ran upstairs at once to inspect. She was bubbling over with excitement and happiness. Her room was, she knew, at the back of the house, so she went to it straight. It was in a great muddle, of course, but the bed was in place, and the chest of drawers. The walls had been newly papered, the paper had little bunches of field daisies all over it, white and red-tipped, each bunch was tied with a blade of green grass. Mona thought it perfectly exquisite, but it was the window which took her fancy captive. It was a lattice window, cut deep in the wall, and before it was a seat wide enough for Mona to sit in—and beyond the window was the sea!
"I'll be able to sit there, and read, and sew, and watch the boats going by," she thought delightedly, "and I'll have little muslin curtains tied back with ribbons, and a flounce of muslin across the top. Oh, I shall love it up here! I shall never want to go out. It's nicer even than my room at father's, and ever so much nicer than the 'Hillside' one!"
A sound of hammering and banging came from the other side of the tiny landing.
"That must be father, putting up granny's bed," she hurried out, and across to him. He had just finished, and was pushing the bed into place. Two great bundles tied up in sheets filled up most of the rest of the floor. One held Granny Barnes' feather-tie, the other her pillow-cases, sheets and blankets.