“I’d like to shut myself up here for a month,” Dicky, who was a great reader, said wistfully. “It looks as if all the books were interesting.” “Oh they are!” Maida assured him. “The Lang Fairy Books and Grimm and Andersen, George McDonald and Louisa M. Alcott and Howard Pyle and Stevenson and Kipling, and all the nicest books that father and Billy Potter and Dr. Pierce and I could think of. And lots more that they selected that I had never heard of.” From the library, they went out doors through the little vine-covered vestibule. From upstairs came the voice of Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore putting the younger children to bed. “We three girls,” Maida explained, “have rooms at the front of the house on the second floor. The nursery is back over the dining room.” “Where do we sleep?” Harold asked. “You boys,” Maida replied, “are going to sleep in the barn.” “Gee _whillikins_!” Dicky exclaimed. “What fun that’ll be!” “I’d rather sleep in a barn than any place I know,” Arthur said. “It’s pretty good fun sleeping in a tent,” Harold threw in. “I was going to say,” Arthur went on, “except out of doors in the woods.” “Now which shall I show you first,” Maida asked, “the boys’ rooms or the girls’ rooms?” She did not wait for an answer. “Come on girls,” she continued in a tone of resignation. “We’ve got to show the boys their place first. They won’t look at anything until they’ve seen them!” The procession moved toward the barn. The lower floor--roomy, raftered, sweet-smelling--was empty except for the canoes; a small run-about; the bicycles; a phonograph; a big chest; garden tools. Maida led the way to the second floor. The railed stairway ran close to the side of the barn, brought them through a square opening in the ceiling, into another big room--the second story. Here, in each of three corners, were army cots; beside each cot, a tall chiffonier. On top of each chiffonier were toilet articles in a simple style; beside each chiffonier a chair. “That’s your bathroom over there.” Maida pointed to the fourth corner which was partitioned off. “It has a shower. I don’t expect you’ll use it much because we’ll be bathing every day in the Magic Mirror. You hang your clothes on hooks behind these curtains. You see you each have a closet of your own.” The boys were of course opening chiffonier drawers; pulling aside curtain-draped closets; examining the shower. Their curiosity appeased, they made for down-stairs--and the canoes. “Now while you boys are examining the barn, would you girls like to explore upstairs in the house?” Maida asked. “I’m just dying to see my own room,” Laura declared firmly. The two girls pelted across the lawn in the wake of Maida’s eager footsteps. They ran up the tiny steep flight of stairs, exactly opposite the little vestibule entrance. It brought them into a small hall from which opened four small slant-roofed chambers.