Mrs. Grey seemed to have taken what no one else wanted, but nothing else that she had on mattered much while she wore the great pink gauze turban which crowned her hair. "It's a real pity no one can see us," declared Frances, when they were mustered in the dining-room, and had dropped, breathless with laughter, into the old chairs which should have welcomed gladly the figures of their youth returning to them. "We'll get up a real affair, give an old folks' concert or something, in costume--we'd have a great one," cried Bruce. "Will you, say toward spring?" "Very likely," said Rob, "but what are we going to do now, this minute?" "You are going to dance," said Mrs. Grey. "I'm going to play for you, and if our piano is old and thin, then you must remember that it is in old-time costume also, and not mind." "We can have a fine square-dance," cried Prue. "Just four couples--papa, will you dance?" "Will I? Will I not?" Mr. Grey cried, gayly. "Whose patent are we celebrating, I'd like to know? Rob and I are head couple." He gave his hand to Rob, Basil and Wythie took one side, Bruce and Frances the other, while tall Bartlemy and Prue fell together, as they usually did. Mrs. Grey played, concealing as well as she could, with her fine touch and real talent, time's ravages on the queer, yellow-keyed old piano. "Now sing," ordered Mr. Grey, when, the dance over, he dropped weary, but happy, into a chair. The quaint figures with the flushed young faces gathered about the old piano, and sang as they were bidden, sang until the clock in the hall startled them by striking eleven. "Why, I had no idea of the time!" cried Frances. "Mamma will think I'm stolen. I must hurry and get into my present-day things and fly home. We've had a lovely time, dear Grey people! There never was a place where people had so much fun without trying, and because they couldn't help it, as in the little grey house." "And there never was a place where good luck was more needed, nor where people were more grateful for hearing that it had come to them, than in the little grey house to-day," added Rob, as she wound her arm around her friend's waist, and bore her away to her room. "Oh, Rob," said Frances, "and oh, Wythie," she added, turning back to include Wythie in the caress she gave Rob, "you know how glad I am of what that man told you! It's well you do, for I can't begin to tell you how glad I am. Isn't it perfectly blessed?" "It's the beginning of the end of our troubles, that's all it is, Francie," said Rob. "This isn't the little grey house to-night; it's Pandora's box, with everything bad flying out, and only hope left." CHAPTER TWELVE ITS TRAGIC SIDE