CHAPTER XVI

THE LODGING AT SPOTVILLE


"Wake up, Patsy: I smell coffee!" called Beth, and soon the two girls
were dressed and assisting Myrtle to complete her toilet. Through the
open windows came the cool, fragrant breath of morning; the sky was
beginning to blush at the coming of the sun.

"To think of our getting up at such unearthly hours!" cried Patsy
cheerfully. "But I don't mind it in the least, Beth; do you?"

"I love the daybreak," returned Beth, softly. "We've wasted the best
hours of morning abed, Patsy, these many years."

"But there's a difference," said Myrtle, earnestly. "I know the
daybreak in the city very well, for nearly all my life I have had to
rise in the dark in order to get my breakfast and be at work on time.
It is different from this, I assure you; especially in winter, when
the chill strikes through to your bones. Even in summer time the air
of the city is overheated and close, and the early mornings cheerless
and uncomfortable. Then I think it is best to stay in bed as long as
you can--if you have nothing else to do. But here, out in the open, it
seems a shame not to be up with the birds to breathe the scent of the
fields and watch the sun send his heralds ahead of him to proclaim his
coming and then climb from the bottomless pit into the sky and take