the Park! A big cool place to live!"

"We've none of us ever been in a house the size of it. You know
what they look like outside, and they say they're bigger than
they look. It's your business to go over the rooms every day or
so to see nothing's going wrong in them--moths or dirt, I
suppose. It's all left open but just one room they've left locked
and don't want interfered with. I told the boss I thought the
basement would seem like the Waldorf-Astoria to us. I tell you I
was so glad I scarcely knew what to say."

Jane drew a long breath.

"A big house up there," she said. "And only one closed room in
it. It's too good to be true!"

"Well, whether it's true or not we'll move out there to-morrow,"
Jem answered cheerfully. "To-morrow morning bright and early. The
boss said the sooner the better."


A large house left deserted by those who have filled its rooms
with emotions and life, expresses a silence, a quality all its
own. A house unfurnished and empty seems less impressively
silent. The fact of its devoidness of sound is upon the whole
more natural. But carpets accustomed to the pressure of
constantly passing feet, chairs and sofas which have held human
warmth, draperies used to the touch of hands drawing them aside
to let in daylight, pictures which have smiled back at thinking
eyes, mirrors which have reflected faces passing hourly in