Charlotte nodded. "Thank you. Luckily, though I'm poor I'm not proud. By the way, you haven't an unused kitchen chair, have you? To tell the truth I forgot several things, and one of them is a chair for the kitchen. I probably shall not sit down myself, and shall always serve our little meals in the living-room, but I foresee that I shall have guests here in the kitchen, and I'd like to be able to offer them a chair. That one you're sitting in is my very best old split-bottomed, high-backed photographer's treasure, which must go in the front room by the fireplace." "When you are through explaining I will assure you that two kitchen chairs will arrive as soon as I go home," promised Ellen. "Bless you! I foresee that you will make a splendid neighbour. Do you want to climb upstairs and see the nest I'm going to feather for Granny?" She turned to the narrow little staircase between the walls, and gayly led the way. But Ellen exclaimed in dismay over the steepness of the stairs. "Charlotte! Do you think dear little old Madam Chase can climb these? They are the steepest I ever saw!" "She won't need to. Private lift, always ready." "What do you mean? Surely not--" Charlotte extended two round, supple arms. "Why not? Granny weighs just eighty pounds--if she is wearing plenty of clothes. In her little nightie and lavender kimono considerably less. And I'm strong as strong." "But even then she's more than you ought to carry up and down this ladder." Charlotte turned at the top of the stairs, and laughed back at her friend. "Granny's a sports-woman," said she. "She will--whisper it!--thoroughly enjoy sliding down these stairs, and, as for my carrying her up them, haven't you yet found out that a weight you love devotedly is just no weight at all? Now, look here! Aren't these bits of rooms fascinating? Hot, just now, I admit--" She ran to the windows, wrenched them open and propped them up. "Too hot in July, certainly; we'll camp downstairs while this weather lasts. But fine and warm and sunny through the winter. A bit of an oil-stove will make Granny as snug as a kitten, and her maid Charlotte will see that she's never left alone with it burning." "I see you're quite invincible in your determination to make the best of everything. I can hardly believe you are the same girl I used to know, brought up to be waited on and petted by everybody. You've developed splendidly, and I'm proud of you." "Thank you, Len. No, I'm not the same girl at all. I've been having to depend upon my own management for four years now--long enough to learn a good many makeshifts. It's been rather a pull, but I've had Granny through it all, and as long as she's left to me I won't complain. I used to be an extravagant person, but you've no idea how I've learned to make money last. Don't stay up here, it's too hot for you. But I'll get the place in order, for it may be cooler by the time I bring Granny, so we can sleep here." "I'll help. What comes first?"