Strawberry Acres By GRACE S. RICHMOND 1911 TO THE OWNER OF "GRASSLANDS" CONTENTS PART I.--FIVE MILES OUT CHAPTER I. Five Miles Out II. Everybody Explores III. The Apartment Overflows IV. Arguments and Answers V. Telephones and Tents VI. In the Pine Grove VII. Everybody is Satisfied VIII. Problems and Hearts IX. Max Compromises X. Jack-O'-Lantern PART II.--THE LANES AND THE ACRES I. What's in a Name II. In the Old Garden III. Afternoon Tea IV. Two and Two V. On an August Evening VI. Time-Tables VII. The Southbound Limited VIII. From April North IX. Round the Corner X. Green Leaves Strawberry Acres PART I.--FIVE MILES OUT CHAPTER I FIVE MILES OUT The four Lanes--Max, Sally, Alec and Robert--climbed the five flights of stairs to their small flat with the agility of youth and the impetus of high but subdued excitement. Uncle Timothy Rudd, following more slowly, reached the outer door of the little suite of rooms in time to hear what seemed to be the first outburst. "Well, what do you think now?" "Forty-two acres _and_ the house! Open the windows and give us air!" "Acres run to seed, and the house tumbling down about its own ears! A magnificent inheritance that!" Max cast his hat upon a chair as if he flung it away with the inheritance. "But who ever thought Uncle Maxwell Lane would ever leave his poor relations anything?" This was Sally. "Five miles out by road--a bit less by trolley. Let's go and see it to-morrow afternoon. Thank goodness a half holiday is so near." "Anybody been by the place lately?" "I was, just the other day, on my wheel. I didn't think it looked so awfully bad." This was Robert, the sixteen-year-old. As Uncle Timothy entered the tiny sitting-room Sally was speaking. She had thrown her black veil back over her hat, revealing masses of flaxen hair, and deep blue eyes glowing with interest. Her delicate cheeks were warmly flushed, partly with excitement, and partly because for two hours now--during the journey from the flat to the lawyer's office, the period spent therein listening to the reading of Uncle Maxwell Lane's will and the business appertaining thereto, and the return trip home--she had worn the veil closely drawn. Her simple mourning was to her a screen behind which to shield herself from curious eyes, always attracted by those masses of singularly fair hair and the unusual contours of the young face beneath. "I think it's a godsend, if ever anything was," she was saying. "Here's Max, killing himself in the bank, and Alec growing pale and grouchy in the office, and even Bob--" She was interrupted by a chorus of protests against her terms of description. "I'm not killing myself!" "Pale and grouchy! I'm not a patch on--" "What's the matter with Bob, Sally Lunn?"