"Yes, I'd mind, because I like to be around when you're fussing, but I'm willing to offer myself a sacrifice, if nobody else will," said Bartlemy, looking around for his hat.
Poor Bartlemy could not hurry Frances sufficiently to get back to the little grey house before supper was ready, and "the fun over," as he grumblingly said. Rob patted his head like a big dog's. "Never mind, Bartie dear," she said, soothingly, "you shall wash all the greasiest pans!"
"What shall we do to celebrate?" asked Prue, when everything was cleared away, and the dining-room table rolled to the wall to allow games.
"I'll tell you," cried Mr. Grey, with an inspiration. "Let's rifle the attic and invoke our ancestors to enjoy with us the prospect of securing to future Greys this little house they loved. We know what treasures there are in the chests and horse-hair trunks up there, don't we, girls?"
"Oh, you never saw our old-fashioned clothing!" cried Wythie. "Why, that's the very thing, papa! Get lamps, boys, and come up to the attic. We'll dress up and have an old-folks' concert, just for ourselves. You never saw such things as we have up there!"
Older and younger, all the Greys with their four guests, and lamps enough to light the party, and with Kiku-san on behind, hoping for mice, repaired to the attic.
A pleasant musty odor of dried herbs, camphor, and cedar-wood greeted them, and queer shadows wavered big on the slanting walls to meet them.
"What a fine place!" exclaimed Basil. "Why don't we come here oftener?"
Mrs. Grey produced her keys and threw open chest after chest, and Wythie, Rob, and Prue, with enthusiastic help from Frances, began shaking out garments of more than a hundred years ago, as well as the big skirts and poke-bonnets of the '50s.
Huge embroidered collars, long, handwrought lace veils, brocaded silks, frail with age; gigantic leghorn bonnets; short, much-shirred waists; high stocks for men, ruffled shirts, tight, short-waisted blue coats; the high, pointed collars in which our grandfathers did penance in the days of "Tippecanoe"; grotesque high and narrow beaver hats, and broad ones of white silk, all these were brought forth into the flickering light amid shouts of laughter and impatient clutches from hands eager to try the effect of something that particularly struck an individual fancy.