“Louie, I don’t suppose you happen to know who owns this house, do you? It’s just occurred to me we’ll have to ask permission to build a fireplace, and that may upset the whole thing. Maybe the owner won’t want an amateur to build a fireplace in his house.” “Oh, that’s all right,” shouted Louise happily, appearing at the stair-head. “Father owns it. It was the only thing he had left after he lost his money.” “Father owns it?” said Cornelia incredulously. “How strange! A house like this! When did he buy it?” “He didn’t buy it. He signed a note for a poor man; and then the man died, and never paid the money, and father had to take the house.” “Oh!” said Cornelia thoughtfully, seeing more tragedy in the family history, and feeling a sudden great tenderness for the father who had borne so many disappointments and yet kept sweet and strong. “Well, then, anyhow we can do as we please with it,” she added happily. “I’m awfully glad. I guess we shan’t have to ask permission. Father ’ll like it all right.” “Well, I rather guess he will, especially if it keeps Carey busy a little while,” said Louise. They worked rapidly and happily together, and soon the books were in orderly rows in the bookcase. Cornelia had found a bundle of old curtains in one of the boxes; and now she brought them out, and began to measure the windows. “The lace curtains all wore out, and mother threw them away,” volunteered Louise sadly. “Never mind; I’ve found a lot of pretty good scrim ones here, and I’m going to wash them and stencil a pattern of wild birds across them,” said Cornelia. “They’ll do for the bedrooms, anyway. The windows are the same size all over the house, aren’t they? I have some beautiful patterns for stencilling up in my trunk that I made for some of the girls’ curtains at college.” “How perfectly dear!” said Louise. “Can’t I go up and find them?” “Yes, they are in the green box just under the tray. I wish we had a couple more windows in this room, it is so dark. If I were a carpenter for a little while I would knock out that partition into the hall, and saw out two windows, one each side of the fireplace over there,” said Cornelia, motioning toward the blank sidewall where already her mind had reared a lovely stone fireplace. “There’s a carpenter lives next door,” said Louise thoughtfully. “He goes to work every morning at seven o’clock, but I suppose he would charge a lot.” “I wonder,” said Cornelia. “We’ll have to think about that”; and she stood off in the hall, and began to look around with her eyelashes drawn down like curtains through which she was sharply watching a thought that had appeared on her mental horizon.