The two girls went up the steep, straight stairs and Louisa took her guest into one of the front rooms. "Mr. Robinson said his wife would be out to get acquainted with us soon," Louisa explained, "and of course she'll have to stay all night. And where, I ask you, Rosemary, is she to sleep?" "Why I don't know, dear," replied Rosemary, smiling. "What is the matter with this room?" She looked about it as she spoke. It was a large, square room, very clean and, it must be confessed, very bare. There was a bureau, one leg missing and the lack supplied by a brick; one chair, the bed and a little table (not large enough to be useful and not small enough to be dainty) completed the furnishings. "It looks so awful," said poor Louisa. "And of course I can't buy material for curtains; Mother used to say that curtains softened a room and helped to furnish it. But I certainly am thankful for one thing." "What?" Rosemary asked. "That I've always saved one pair of Mother's good sheets and her best light blankets and two pillow cases, real linen ones," said Louisa. "When the linen began to wear out, I patched it and darned it as well as I could, but our sheets last winter were made of flour sacks, stitched together. They're white as snow for I bleached them, but I wouldn't want to have Mr. Robinson's wife sleep on flour sack sheets." "Oh, my, of course not," said the sympathetic Rosemary. "She won't have to," declared Louisa with satisfaction. "Much as I have wanted to use these sheets and the blankets, I've kept them put away. They are linen Mother had when she was married and I never could afford to buy any like it now." "That's fine," said Rosemary, a trifle absently. She was studying the windows, three placed close together on one side of the room. "Do you know, Louisa," she said slowly, "I believe we could make curtains for those windows--just straight side-drapes, you understand, with a plain valance across the top." "I've seen pictures," Louisa admitted, "but I haven't any material." "I could get it," Rosemary began, but Louisa shook her head. "It's a silly idea, anyway," she declared resolutely. "I haven't any business to be thinking about curtains when the whole house is as shabby as my old winter coat. If Mrs. Robinson does come and see new curtains she'd know right away that I'd spent money I couldn't afford on them. She might even get the idea that I was trying to make an impression." "You have a perfect right to try and make a pleasant impression!" flared Rosemary hotly. "Of course you have. And I'll tell you how to make new curtains and they won't cost a cent--except money you have already paid. Use the blue and white gingham!" Louisa stared. She had bought, almost as soon as Alec had told her the good news of the farm's rental, a dozen yards of neat blue and white checked gingham to make Kitty and June some much-needed frocks and herself an apron or two. "But I never heard of gingham curtains!" Louisa protested.