“Elizabeth, don’t you think it would be nice to have a little surprise for mother?” asked Ernestine. “Something useful that would save her work or trouble, after she comes back? I’ll tell you what,—suppose we clean house! You, and Rose, and I could do it perfectly well; and this place hasn’t had a good raking out in ages!” “That’s rather a sensible idea,” I agreed; “especially now, when the family is so small. We could manage the attic, the basement, and the parlour floor, perhaps; but we mustn’t disturb the boarders. Have you noticed, Ernie, that the Lysles have been receiving summer resort pamphlets in almost every mail this week? I am afraid it means they are planning to leave the city early,—and Miss Brown told me Monday that she had an invitation to spend July and August with her nieces in the Adirondacks. I try not to worry; but we have drawn our last money from the bank, and, oh, I do dread the summer!” “Don’t think about it, then,” returned Ernie, stoutly. “We’ve weathered a good many storms, honey, and it would be pretty ungrateful for us to fret _now_. Perhaps something will turn up at the last moment. I wish we were going to the country, too!” she added, with an inconsistent little sigh. “Robin has never seen a clover field,” I answered, “nor a live cow. And I haven’t tasted buttermilk since I was seven years old. Just think, the woods are full of violets this very minute,—and thrushes, and bluebirds!” “I know it,” returned Ernie, glancing pensively out the window at the battered row of ash-cans that lined our dusty street. “I wish we could rent this old house,” she added, vindictively, “and go away, and start a chicken farm! I’m tired of boarders, Elizabeth;—even when they are as kind and considerate as Miss Brown and the Hippo family!” “You can’t be as tired of them as I am,” I answered,—“because you don’t have to order their meals! But we would need the front stoop browned over, and the cellar concreted, before we could dream of letting; and such things cost money. It just seems as if our hands were tied.” “Which needn’t prevent them from wielding a broom!” exclaimed Ernie, springing up with an energetic shake of her short skirts. “Come on, child,—I’m ashamed of us! A little hard work is the medicine we need. The idea of sitting here in opposite rocking-chairs, croakin’ at one another like a pair of discontented grannies, when Robin and Geof are growing fat in Atlantic City, and mother is having a really truly holiday for the first time in years! _I’m_ going up to begin on the attic this instant; and if we have to feel blue in June,—why, that’s nearly two months off, yet.” “But it’s four o’clock, Ernie,” I protested. “Don’t you think we had better put off the house-cleaning till to-morrow?”