would be glad to store them for me for awhile. Aren’t you on good terms with your neighbors, Laura?”

“The Rankins might take them,” said Laura, thoughtfully. “They have that vacant room, you know, Tom. They might not mind letting us put them in there.”

[Pg 78]“I don’t know the Rankins,” said Kitty, “but I am sure they are perfectly lovely people, and that they would not mind in the least.”

[Pg 78]

“I know they wouldn’t,” said Mr. Fenelby. “Rankin would be glad to do something of that sort to repay me for the number of times he has borrowed my lawn-mower. I will step over after dinner and ask him.”

“Are you sure, very sure, that you do not mind, Kitty?” asked Mrs. Fenelby. “You will not feel hurt, or anything?”

“Oh, no!” said Kitty, lightly. “It will be a lark. I never in my life went visiting with three trunks, and then [Pg 79]had them stored in another house. It will be quite like being shipwrecked on a desert island, to get along with one shirt-waist and one handkerchief.”

[Pg 79]

“It will not be quite that bad, you know,” said Mr. Fenelby, with the air of a man stating a great discovery, “because, don’t you see, you can open your trunks at the Rankins’, and bring over just as many things as you think you can afford to pay on.”

For some reason that Mr. Fenelby could not fathom Kitty laughed merrily at this, and then they all went in to dinner. It was a very good dinner, of the kind that Bridget could prepare when she was in the humor, and they [Pg 80]sat rather longer over it than usual, and then Mr. Fenelby proposed that he should step over to the Rankins’ and arrange about the storage of Kitty’s trunks, and on thinking it over he decided that he had better step down to the station and see if he could not get a man to carry the trunks across the street and up the Rankins’ stairs. As they filed out of the house upon the porch, Kitty suddenly decided that it was a beautiful evening for a little walk, and that nothing would please her so much as to walk to the station with Mr. Fenelby, if Laura would be one of the party, and after running up to see that Bobberts was all [Pg 83]right, Laura said that she would go, and they started. As they were crossing the street to the Rankins’ Kitty suddenly turned back.

[Pg 80]

[Pg 83]

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