There was only one room and a loft to be put in order, but Doris always did it while her mother was busy in the kitchen, getting ready for the day's professional round. Sidney was exceedingly particular about the cleaning of her house, insisting that the "rising sun" of the red and yellow calico quilt should always be precisely in the middle of the feather bed, and that the gorgeous border of sun-rays should be even all around the edges. The long, narrow pillow-cases, ruffled across the ends, must also hang just so far down the bed's sides--and no farther. The home-made rug, too, had its exact place, and there must never be a speck of dust anywhere. The house was said to be the cleanest in Oldfield, where all the houses were clean. Some people believed that Sidney scrubbed the log walls inside and outside every spring, before whitewashing them within and without. Be that as it may, the poor home had, at all events, the fresh neatness which invests even poverty with refinement. Doris slighted nothing that morning, although she was naturally impatient to go back to the book-muslin. Yet it seemed to take longer to get the house in perfect order than ever before. The trundle-bed in which Kate and Billy slept was particularly contrary, and it really looked, for a time, as if Doris would never be able to get it entirely out of sight under the big bed. It was settled at last, however, and she had taken up the party coat and had seated herself beside the window, when her mother entered the room.