Everybody in town knew the Hapgood house. It stood close to the
street, under a row of huge elms, and surrounded with clumps of
purple and white lilac bushes whose topmost blossoms peeped
curiously in at the chamber windows. Such houses are only found in
New England, but there they abound with their broad front
"stoops," the long slant of their rear roofs, where a ladder is
firmly fixed, to serve in case of fire, and the great, low rooms
grouped around the immense chimney in the middle. The Hapgood
house had been in the family for generations, and was kept in such
an excellent state of repair that it bade fair to outlast many of
the more recent houses of the town. A wing had been built out at
the side; but even with this modern addition, no one needed to
glance up at the date on the chimney--sixteen hundred and no-
matter-what--to assure himself of the great age of the stately old
house before him.

Up in the Hapgood attic a serious consultation was going on.

"Now, girls," Polly Adams began solemnly, "'most half of our
vacation has gone, and I think we ought to do something before
it's over."

"Aren't we doing something this very minute, I should like to
know?" inquired Molly Hapgood, who had felt privileged, in her
capacity as hostess, to throw herself down on the old bed which
occupied one corner of the garret.

Polly frowned on such levity.

"I don't mean that, Molly, and you know it. What I think is, that