The carpenters and plumbers were soon busy with their tasks. The old building rang with the sound of hammer and saw. The partitions for bedroom, kitchen and bath were up in an inconceivably short time with the help of the tongue and groove sealing which had been cut the right length at the lumber yard under Danny’s directions. The ready-made doors were hung and the bath and small gas range put into place by the muscular Bob and connections made by those more expert in pipe fitting.

“It has been finished so rapidly it is almost like the little house Peter Pan built Wendy,” laughed Elizabeth.

“It is lovely,” said Lucile, “but I’d be afraid to sleep in a room that had no top to it. Just think how easy it would be for burglars to crawl over the partitions and run off with the family plate!”

“But there is no family plate and what there97 is will be out in the shop and not in my bedroom. Our bedroom, I should say, as I think Elizabeth will be spending the summer with me,” laughed Josie. “I’m never afraid and besides I carry a small automatic for emergencies.”

“You do? How amusing!” said Mrs. Markle, who had stayed on through the afternoon in spite of the fact that she had declared she had only a moment and wanted to see Mary Louise on some important matter which she forgot to divulge. She had been very charming and the young men, one and all, as Billy McGraw expressed it, “fell for her.”

“Don’t forget you are coming to call on us,” she said to that young man, sweetly. “I want you and Mr. Markle to know each other. You are sure to like each other. I know you think I am foolish, but my husband is such a dear.”

“Foolish because your husband is a dear?”

“I mean foolish to talk about it. I know it is not the thing in this day and generation for the wife to be too much in love with her husband, but I am hopelessly old-fashioned.”

“You evidently don’t know Dorfield, Mrs. Markle. It seems to be the style here for wives to be very fond of their husbands, but, of course,98 Dorfield is a million years behind the times, thank goodness!”

“It is lovely to see a young man who feels that way about things. So many young men are inclined to be facetious on the subject. Sometimes they seem to think I am not worth talking to because I am so unfeignedly devoted to my husband. Of course, I could have a much gayer time if I could disguise my feelings, but I can’t do it. They seem to think that, because Mr. Markle is so much older than I am, I must not be sincere in my protestations of affection. How absurd they are!”

“Your protestations?”

“No, I mean the young men.”

Now the above conversation sounds very silly when put down in cold print, but when it was carried on by a wonderful beautiful young woman with a voice that thrilled one down the spinal cord with a certain rich cello quality, eyes that were so deep and glorious that Billy in looking in them had a kind of feeling he must catch hold of something to keep from falling in, and withal a friendly, sweet, girlish grace, it did not seem at all silly to Billy McGraw. He forgot all about what a nice girl Elizabeth Wright was and how99 he had fully intended to ask her to go to the next dance with him, forgot why he had been asked to have lunch at the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop, forgot everything but how extremely lovely Mrs. Markle was and what a lucky dog her old husband was. Never having met that gentleman, he pictured him as tottering on the brink of the grave.

“Hey, Billy, pipe fitting going on! Come on and help! What do you think you are here for?” called Danny.

Mrs. Markle blushed again adorably.

“Oh, please go! I am mortified that I should have kept you chatting with me when they need you. You see sometimes I get just a teensy bit lonesome and long for the companionship of someone nearer my own age, just to talk foolishness to. My dear husband is so—so—deep and intellectual—not that you are not intelligent too—oh, ever so much so, but you don’t mind stooping to my foolish prattle.”

Billy went off to fitting pipes with quite a glow, around his generous, boyish heart.

“Poor little girl! I fancy she does get bored with such an old dry-as-dust as Markle must be. I’ll see if I can’t give her some good times.”

100 “Now do tell me something of what your plans are in this delightful place,” said Mrs. Markle, joining Josie and Elizabeth, who were busily engaged in unpacking more and more books, which Irene, seated on a low chair, was dusting and placing on the shelves.

“Well, this corner is our information bureau. These books are all of them different kinds of encyclopedias. Anybody who wants to know anything can come to us and we can come mighty near telling him or her what is wanted.”

“Where did you get such a collection, child? It is wonderful.”

“It was my father’s,” said Josie, with the look in her eyes that always came at mention of her father.

“Your father was the great detective, was he not?”

“Yes!”

“He was a wonderful man, so I have heard.”

&ld............