chaperone, and we want to get everything in order before he comes," said Dum.

"Well, that bein' the case, I'd better get a hump on and finish up the kitchen that greasy nigger left in such a state; and then I'll come right on up to the bedrooms. This lapping and slamming of tenants is right hard on me, but it is the only way I can get my fifteen per cent out of my investment."

"Did you plan the house yourself, Mrs. Rand?" questioned Dum. "It is so pretty."

"What, me? Do I look crazy? When I builds, I builds a house with a parlor and nice, tight bedrooms. I don't 'low the builder to waste no lumber on porches that's nothin' but snares fer lazy folks. I owns three houses over to Virginia Beach, as snug little homes as you ever seed; but somehow it looks like I can't git rich tenants fer 'em, in spite of they bein' on the water front. Rich folks what is got the money to sleep in nice, close bedrooms is all took to sleepin' out doors like tramps; an' when they is got all the time there is to set in the parlors and rock, they ain't content in the house but must take theyselves out in the wind and sun 'til they look like Injuns!

"No, sirree! I had a mortgage on this house an' foreclosed. It was built and owned by a architect from Norfolk. I had a chattel mortgage, too, so I got all his fixin's. I felt real sorry fer him. It looked like he loved the place as if'n it was his own flesh and blood. It is a strange, misshapen lookin' house to me; but they do say if any of yo' children is afflicted, you loves 'em more'n all the others. I wanted to decoration this barn a little with some real fine pictures a lightnin' artist over to Hampton struck off for me while I waited, but the man took on so, jist like he thought I might a-been desecratin' the grave of his child! And he kinder made me promise to leave this room jist as it is with that common old blue chany on the mantel an' this strip of blue and white rag on the table. So that's how it comes to be so bare-like."

"We don't think it is bare, Mrs. Rand, but beautiful," said Dum reverently, and Dee took off her hat and held it just as I had seen her father do when a funeral was passing. "May we go upstairs and see the sleeping porches, and maybe we can help you some?"

"Snoop around all you've a mind to; but I wouldn't ask you to help. When I rents a furnished house I sees that it is turned over to tenants in apple-pie order, and if'n you'd 'a' come in the afternoon instid of morning you'd 'a' found it ship-shape."

"But we'd simply adore helping," urged Dee.

"All right, if you must you must! Here's a basket of clean sheets an' sich, an' here's clean bags fer the mattresses. I never asks one tenant to sleep on the same tick cover that the one before it used, certainly not when boys is been the fore-runners. These was likely boys if'n they was a leetle harum-scarum, but boys at the best is kinder goatish. Jist bundle up the s'iled bedclothes an' trun 'em down the steps, an then when you've buttoned up the mattresses in their clean covers make up the cots to suit your fancy. By that time I'll be up with my broom and rags." And Mrs. Rand bustled out to the kitchen to clean up after her abomination.

We could hardly wait for her to get out of the room to have a good giggle. She was a type that was new to me. Dee declared that she was a real out and out "po' white" if she did own three houses at Virginia Beach and one at Willoughby, and got 15 per cent on her investments. Her dialect was, in some instances, like the coloured people's, but her voice was high and nasal and every sentence ended in a kind of whine. With our coloured friends the dropping of a "g" or "d" makes their speech soft and mellow, but with this so-called "poor white" it seemed to make it only dry and hard. Certainly Mrs. Rand's exterior was not very attractive, but there was a kind of frankness about her that I rather liked. I had an idea that she was going to prove a good and just landlady, which, after all, is very important when one is renting a furnished house for a month at the sea shore.

"Thank goodness, we are spared the lightning artist's pictures," sighed Dum. "Isn't this room wonderful?"

It had indeed the repose and calm of a forest. The light was soft and subdued after the glare of sand and water. The high, vaulted, unplastered ceiling with its heavy green beams and rafters made me think of William Morris's description of the hall of the Nibelungs when the eagles screamed in the roof-tree.

We carried the heavy basket of clean bed linen upstairs and made our way through the dressing rooms, which were little more than closets, to the spacious sleeping porches, overlooking the bay. We found the place in very good order, considering boys had been keeping bach there for a month, and it was not at all "goatish," as we had been led to expect to find it. On the first porch we discovered an old checked cap on a hook, and some discarded tennis shoes in a corner, under one pillow a wallet, rather fat with bank bills, and under another a large gold watch.

"Aren't boys the limit, though?" exclaimed Dee as she carefully placed the valuables in a drawer. "That means they'll be coming back for their treasures. Maybe we had better save the old hat and shoes, too;" which we did with as much care as we had shown the watch and wallet. We bundled up the bed clothes according to instructions and decided to visit the other porches and get rid of all the soiled linen before we commenced to make up the cots. There were three large porches, with two dressing rooms to each porch, and two small porches in the back, one of them, we fancied, intended for the servant and the other one for some person who preferred solitude to company, as there was room for only one bed on it.

This porch was the last one we visited and we found it in terrible disarray. There were clothes and shoes all over the floor and the bed was piled high with a conglomeration of sweaters, baseball suits and what not.

"My, what a mess!" I cried, being the first to enter. "And this is the room of all others to get in order, as I fancy Miss Cox, our chaperone, will occupy it."

"Yes, this would be best," said Dum. "She could have more privacy, and then, too, she would escape the morning sun. Here, you girls, catch hold of the corners of the sheet and let's take up all of this trash and 'trun' it down the steps and let Mrs. Rand sort it out."

We laid hold with a good will, but it proved to be very heavy, so heavy, in fact, that just as we got it off the bed, Dee let go her end and the contents fell to the floor with a resounding bump.

CHAPTER II.

The mass of bed clothes and sweaters and shoes went through a great upheaval, and an arm, encased in a striped pajama sleeve, was thrust forth. We did what girls always do, we screamed and then we giggled.

"Gee, it's hot!" came in muffled tones. "It's hard enough to be waked before daybreak but you fellows might at least wake me like gentlemen and not pull me out of bed, keeping up such an infernal cackling, too, sounding like a lot of fool girls."

Of course, the thing to do was to get out of the room, or rather off the porch, as fast as we could, but, as Dee and I were at the foot of the bed and the floor space was occupied by the squirming mass, we had no chance to make a graceful exit.