"Oh Sid, wouldn't this be just a dandy place for a party?" she exclaimed eagerly. "You could put the orchestra over in that corner behind a screen of palms, and decorate with gray Florida moss and asparagus vine with daffodils wired on in showers from the beams, and palms all around the walls, and colored electrics hidden everywhere. You could run a wire in from the street, couldn't you? the way they did at Uncle Andy's, and serve the supper out on the lawn with little individual rustic tables. Brower has them, and brings them out with rustic chairs to match. You could have the tree wired, too, and have colored electrics all over the place. Oh! wouldn't it be just heavenly? Say, Sid, Carol says they are coming out here to live, maybe; why couldn't we give them a party like that for a house-warming?" Sidney Graham looked at his eager, impractical young sister and then at the faces of the three Hollisters, and tried not to laugh as the tremendous contrast of circumstances was presented to him. But his rare tact served him in good stead. "Why, Elizabeth, that would doubtless be very delightful; but Miss Hollister tells me her mother has been quite ill, and I'm sure, while that might be the happiest thing imaginable for you young folks, it would be rather trying on an invalid. I guess you'll have to have your parties somewhere else for the present." "Oh!" said Elizabeth with quick recollection, "of course! They told me about their mother. How thoughtless of me! But it would be lovely, wouldn't it, Miss Hollister? Can't you see it?" She turned in wistful appeal to Shirley, and that young woman, being a dreamer herself, at once responded with a radiant smile: "Indeed I can, and it would be lovely indeed, but I've been thinking what a lovely home it could be made, too." "Yes?" said Elizabeth questioningly, and looking around with a dubious frown. "It would need a lot of changing, I should think. You would want hardwood floors, and lots of rugs, and some partitions and windows----" "Oh, no," said Shirley, laughing. "We're not hardwood people, dear; we're just plain hard-working people; and all we need is a quiet, sweet place to rest in. It's going to be just heavenly here, with that tree outside to shade the doorway, and all this wide space to walk around in. We live in a little narrow city house now, and never have any place to get out except the street. We'll have the birds and the brook for orchestra, and we won't need palms, because the trees and vines will soon be in leaf and make a lovely screen for our orchestra. I imagine at night the stars will have almost as many colors as electrics." Elizabeth looked at her with puzzled eyes, but half convinced. "Well, yes, perhaps they would," she said, and smiled. "I've never thought of them that way, but it sounds very pretty, quite like some of Browning's poetry that I don't understand, or was it Mrs. Browning? I can't quite remember."