laid plots, or what secret letters may be26 hidden behind the woodwork in that funny little cater-cornered closet over there, or—" 26 She stopped suddenly from sheer lack of breath. Her three listeners were staring at her spellbound. Even the less impressionable twins were devouring her words in wide-eyed wonder. As for Margaret, she was tingling to her finger-tips with a strange excitement. A whole new vista of wonderful things had suddenly been opened to her. She looked about on what she had always considered her perfectly ordinary, commonplace home, and her very scalp prickled to think of the many-sided mysteries its walls might contain. She felt a sudden wild desire to get to the cater-cornered closet Corinne had mentioned (though she knew it contained nothing more exciting than Sarah's dusters and some dilapidated books), rip out its white woodwork and search frantically for hidden documents. Instead, she leaned back in her chair with a long sigh, and remarked: "Well, you are a wonder, Corinne! You've given me something new to think of. From27 now on, this house will always be as interesting to me as a story!" 27 Corinne nodded, but only said, "I know!" Suddenly Jess sat up with a start and exclaimed: "Oh, by the way, Corinne, as you're so interested in old things, I wonder if you'd like to see the spinning-wheel we've got up in the attic. Mother says it belonged to her grandmother in New England more than a hundred years ago!" "Have you actually an attic?" cried Corinne, joyfully. "Oh, do let me see it—that is, if it won't be inconvenient! Actually, girls, I've never been in a real attic in my life! And I'd love to see the spinning-wheel, too." "Well, come right along with me," said Jess, "and we'll see it while the daylight lasts. I suppose it isn't the same kind of an attic you'd find in a big old farmhouse, but it's the open space over the top floor that we've always used as an attic and storeroom, except the back part, which is finished off into a room that Sarah uses. She's our maid,—or rather, our housekeeper,28 and we'd better not let her catch us up there, because she's awfully particular how she keeps the attic, and never allows us to go up and disturb things." 28 So Jess escorted the antique-loving Corinne to the exploration of
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