“I guess I know all ’bout my hair and how red ’t is.  The boys ask me if Pop painted it.”

“Why do you strain it back so tight?”

“Keep it out o’ my eyes.”

“Nonsense; you needn’t drag it out by the roots.  Why do you tie the braids with strings?”

“‘Cause they hold, an’ I hain’t got no ribbons.”

“Why don’t you buy some with the money you earn here?”

“Savin’ up for the Fourth.”

“Well, I have yards of old Christmas ribbons that I’ll give you if you’ll use them.”

“All right.”

“What do you scrub your face with, that makes those shiny knobs stick right out on your forehead and cheek bones?”

“Sink soap.”

“Well, you shouldn’t; haven’t you any other?”

“It’s upstairs.”

“Aren’t your legs in good working order?”

Uncomprehending silence on Lallie Joy’s part and then Nancy returned to the onslaught.

“Don’t you like to look at pretty things?”

“Dunno but I do, an’ dunno as I do.”

“Don’t you love the rooms your father has finished here?”

“Kind of.”

“Not any more than that?”

“Pop thinks some of ’em’s queer, an’ so does Bill Harmon.”

Long silence, Nancy being utterly daunted.

“How did you come by your name, Lallie Joy?”

“Lallie’s out of a book named Lallie Rook, an’ I was born on the Joy steamboat line going to Boston.”

“Oh, I thought Joy was Joy!”

“Joy Line’s the only joy I ever heard of!”

There is no knowing how long this depressing conversation would have continued if the two girls had not heard loud calls from Gilbert upstairs.  Lallie Joy evinced no surprise, and went on peeling potatoes; she might have been a sister of the famous Casabianca, and she certainly could have been trusted not to flee from any burning deck, whatever the provocation.

“Come and see what we’ve found, Digby and I!” Gilbert cried.  “Come, girls; come, mother!  We were stripping off the paper because Mr. Popham said there’d been so many layers on the walls it would be a good time to get to the bottom of it and have it all fresh and clean.  So just now, as I was working over the mantel piece and Digby on the long wall, look in and see what we uncovered!”

Mrs. Carey had come from the nursery, Kitty and Julia from the garden, and Osh Popham from the shed, and they all gazed with joy and surprise at the quaint landscapes that had been painted in water colors before the day of wall paper had come.

Mr. Popham quickly took one of his tools and began on another side of the room.  They worked slowly and carefully, and in an hour or two the pictures stood revealed, a little faded in color but beautifully drawn, with almost nothing of any moment missing from the scenes.

“Je-roosh-y! ain’t they handsome!” exclaimed Osh, standing in the middle of the room with the family surrounding him in various attitudes of ecstasy.  “But they’re too faced out to leave’s they be, ain’t they, Mis’ Carey?  You’ll have to cover ’em up with new paper, won’t you, or shall you let me put a coat of varnish on ’em?”