“No,” said Mrs. Holabird; “and especially at the front windows.  A great deal that is good—­a great deal of the best—­comes in at the back-doors.”

Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we did.  They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses.

Our “back yett was ajee,” now, at any rate.

Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did her cousin and Dakie. [Footnote:  Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie’s cousin, and Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite’s ward.  I do not believe we have ever thought to put this in before.]

Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day.

Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five years ago, was christened “Beatrix.”  She plays backgammon in the twilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively and severe, in the evenings, for father.  At this whist-table, Barbara usually is the fourth.  Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth—­Miss Trixie says—­“plays like a ninkum.”

We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when we were especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had something particularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerily down for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-nice about us; or when we were going to make something “contrive-y,” “Swiss-family-Robinson-ish,” that got us all together over it, in the hilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition.  Miss Trixie could appreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of old furniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improve upon—­certainly to supplant—­the original pattern.  Yet she always had a fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable had ever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of our improvements, as if they had been her own.  “We’re just as cosey as we can be, already,—­it isn’t that; but we want somebody to tell us how cosey we are.  Let’s get Miss Trixie to-day,” says Barbara.

Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room.  It was tan-color, bound with crimson,—­covering three square yards; and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right after breakfast, one cool morning.  Then Katty washed up the dark floor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, and mother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and the great bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up our camp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and to have a brand-new piece of furniture before night.

Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie was the last and crowning suggestion.  It was not far to send, and she was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag.