Sally laughed. "How funny!" she said. "And what pretty names!"
"We think they are pretty names. Now, here we are."
They were just turning in between granite gateposts that were green with dampness, and Sally looked up with a lively interest. She caught a glimpse of a wooden front fence of three octagonal rails; but it was only a glimpse, for the view was cut off, almost immediately, by the row of great evergreens which stood just back of the fence. There were two other evergreens in the middle of the plot of lawn, and the elms on the streets stretched their branches far over, nearly to the house. Altogether, it gave a depressing effect of gloom and decay, which the aspect of the house itself did not tend to relieve.
It was a wooden house, large and square, although not so large as those on the Cow Path. It had a deeply recessed doorway with four wooden columns extending up two stories to support the gable. The house was not clap-boarded, but was smooth and sanded and its surface was grooved to look like stone. It might once have been a fair imitation of granite, but the time was in the distant past when the old house would have fooled even the most casual observer. And it gave them no welcome; nobody opened the door at their approach, or, at least, nobody on the inside. The door did not open until Cousin Martha opened it herself, disclosing a dark and gloomy interior.
"Come in, Sally," she said; "and you, too, Mr. Sanderson, if you please. If you will wait in the parlor for a moment, I will see about some breakfast for you. I have no doubt you are both hungry as well as Charlie. We have had our breakfast."
Sally wondered who the "we" might be. It had not occurred to her until that moment that there might be somebody else in that great gloomy house besides Cousin Martha.
"Sally," cried Charlie fretfully as they entered the dark parlor. "I want to go home. I want to go to my own home, Sally."
"Hush, Charlie," said Sally. "This is our home now. Hush. Cousin Martha may hear you."
Charlie would not hush. He was tired and hungry, although they had had an apology for a breakfast, the remains of their cold lunch, before six o'clock.
"Isn't my home. This old house isn't—"