It began to have the lonesome look which a house has when the heart has gone out of it and nobody puts a new heart in. The garden was growing sad and careless. The flowers drooped and pouted, and leaned peevishly against one another. Only the weeds seemed glad,--as undisturbed weeds do,--and made the most of their holiday to grow tall and impertinent and to crowd their more sensitive neighbors out of their very beds. But one September day something happened to the old house. A lady and gentleman, a big girl and a little boy, came walking over the slate stones between the rows of sulky flowers. The gentleman, who was tall and thin and pale, opened the front door with a key bearing a huge tag, and cried:-- “Good-day, Crowfield! Welcome your new friends to their new home. We greet you kindly, old house. Be good to us!” “What a dear house!” said the lady, as they entered the front hall. “I know I am going to like it. This paneled woodwork is beautiful.” “Open the windows, John, so that we can see what we are about,” said Dr. Corliss. John shoved up the dusty windows and pushed out the queer little wooden shutters, and a flood of September sunshine poured into the old house, chasing away the shadows. It was just as if the house took a long breath and woke up from its nap. “What a funny place to live in!” cried Mary. “It’s like a museum.” “Whew!” whistled John. “I bet we’ll have fun here.” The hallway in which they stood did, indeed, seem rather like the entrance to a museum, as Mary Corliss said. On the white paneled walls which Mrs. Corliss admired were hanging all sorts of queer things: huge shells, and ships in glass cases, stuffed fishes, weapons, and china-ware. On a shelf between the windows stood a row of china cats, blue, red, green, and yellow, grinning mischievously at the family who confronted them. On the floor were rugs of bright colors, and odd chairs and tables sprawled about like quadrupeds ready to run. “Gee!” whispered John Corliss, “don’t they look as if they were just ready to bark and mew and wow at us? Do you suppose it’s welcome or unwelcome, Daddy?” “Oh, welcome, of course!” said Dr. Corliss. “I dare say they remember me, at least, though it’s thirty years since I was in this house. Thirty years! Just think of it!” They were in the parlor now, which had been Miss Corliss’s “best room.” And this was even queerer than the hallway had been. It was crowded with all sorts of collections in cabinets, trophies on the walls, pictures, and ornaments.