"To-morrow happens to be a legal holiday, you know, and the paperer says if he does n't have the right paper this afternoon it will be three days before he can finish."

"That would be an awful bother," Murray declared, "just as you 're getting settled. I 'm glad we 're so near. Come in. This way, please. Take this chair here by the desk. I 'll just wait in the hall and show you the way out."

As he waited, Murray could not help hearing. The business did not seem to be easily accomplished. When his visitor had succeeded in getting the paper house on the telephone she had a very bad time making the man at the other end of the line understand about the mistake in the paper, and when it became plain that he did understand, Jane's surprised little sentences showed that he was a most unaccommodating person, and would not do what she requested.

"You can't do it?" she asked, and Murray observed that with all the trouble she was having her voice did not lose its courteous intonations.

"Not this afternoon at all? We are very anxious to get the room settled and the paperer says---- Yes, I know, but it surely was n't our mistake. I beg your pardon--it 's only three o'clock, I think, not four. He says there 's plenty of time if---- No, I 've nobody to send."

"Look here!" Murray's disgusted voice was at her ear. He was gently attempting to take the receiver away from her. "Let me tackle that person, please."

The next moment Jane was standing beside the desk, her cheeks rosy with a quite reasonable indignation at the treatment she had been receiving from the surly unknown. At the telephone sat her new acquaintance, sending rapid requests over the wire in a tone which plainly was making somebody attend.

"Not fix up your own mistake to-night--with to-morrow a holiday? Why not? There's plenty of time. Send by a special messenger, of course, and tell him to be quick. Who's talking to you? That does n't make any special difference, does it? It may be a small order--I don't see what that has to do with it. Mrs. Bell needs that paper up within half an hour. Yes--well, this is Harrison Townsend's house--Worthington Square, and I 'm telephoning for our friends. What? Oh, you will! Well, thank you! I 'm glad you see your way clear. Yes--half an hour--I say, make it twenty minutes, can't you, please? Very well." And Murray broke off, and hung up the receiver with an impatient click which expressed his contempt for a clerk who would hurry up an order for Worthington Square when he would n't do it for Gay Street.

"Idiot!" he remarked.

The girl beside him moved toward the door, smiling. "It was ever so kind of you," she said. "The paper is for the dining-room, and you can guess how it upsets things to have the dining-room in confusion."

"I hope you didn't mind my telling that fellow you were our friends," said Murray, as he accompanied his guest to the door. "Such near neighbours----"

"Oh, I understood! That was what made it so easy for him to get a messenger! Only--please don't think we----"

"Yes?" Murray was smiling encouragingly at her.

"It sounds absurd, but--it's so dreadfully soon to be borrowing telephones----"

"Or molasses?"

They both laughed. Murray's hand lingered upon the door knob, which at this moment it became timely for him to turn for her. "I could n't help hearing your sister assuring you that she would tell people you never borrowed molasses. I don't see why not. We might need to borrow it of you some time, but of course if you feel there's something especially prohibitive about molasses----"

He knew he was not saying anything brilliant, but it made her laugh again, and laughing is an excellent way of getting over a trying situation.

But he was obliged to open the door for her without delay, for she plainly was not going to be tempted into lingering. She ran down the steps, and he saw her bronze-red hair catch the sunshine as she went. As she reached the bottom he called after her: "I hope you'll like that paper mighty well when it's on!"

"Thank you!" he heard her answer, over her shoulder, and he was sure that she was still smiling. It seemed to him reasonably certain that the Bells were pleasant people to know.

CHAPTER II

GAY STREET SETTLES DOWN

Tramp, tramp, upon the little porch. Peter flung the door wide, and in marched the four male members of the house of Bell. The door opened hospitably at once into the living-room, so that the four were able at a glance to see what had been accomplished, and they immediately gave voice to their surprise. "Hi!" This was fifteen-year-old Rufus's exclamation. "Hi! hi! Hip, hip, hurray-ay!"

"Well, well, they must have worked!" said Peter. "I was up here an hour this morning, and they had n't got further than washing the windows."

"When it comes to hustling work, Mother Bell and corps can't be beaten," declared Ross McAndrew, the cousin of the Bells, a pleasant-faced lad of eighteen.

There was a rush from the rear of the house, and Nancy was upon them--Nancy, the twelve-year-old, with the thick brown braids and the round, bright face. Ross caught her and swung her up to his shoulder, where she struggled frantically.

"I 'm too old, Ross!" she pleaded, rumpling his curly fair hair in revenge until it stood on end. "Put me down! Put me down at once! O-oh, you 're bumping my head against the ceiling!"

He looked up and laughing swung her gently down. "It is n't a very lofty apartment, is it, Nan? Did it hurt?"

"Only my feelings. Does n't it look nice here? Mother worked at the kitchen, and Jane and I did all this. We wanted it to look like home when you came."

"It does, indeed. But I must admit I 'm glad mother kept at the kitchen," laughed her father, with a tweak of one fat braid. "It seems too much to expect that we should have a meal to-night in all the disorder, but Peter brought back word this morning that we were to come."

"Indeed you are," said a voice from an inner doorway, and everybody turned. A fresh white apron tied about her trim waist--where did she find it in the confusion?--her beautiful hair in careful order, Mrs. Bell beamed at her big family. "We've nothing but an Irish stew for you, but we had it on this morning as soon as the fire was built, and it's tender and fine."

"Good for you! We like nothing better. Where's Janey?"

"In the kitchen, trying to make places for you all at the kitchen table. We could n't do anything with the dining-room. The paperer has only just gone."

"Come on, you people!" called a blithe voice from the next room, and Jane's face looked over her mother's shoulder. "Turn to the right as you come through the door, and follow the wall round. I 've made a passage that way, but you 're likely to get into perilous places if you try to steer for yourselves."

In single file they followed directions, all but young