and the several other knickknacks that
would help to make the big dresser look as though "there was somebody at
home," as she whispered to herself.

She draped a scarf here, hung up a pretty silk bag there, placed
Momsey's and Papa Sherwood's portraits in their little silver filigree
easels on the mantelpiece, flanking the clock that would not run and
which was held by the ugly china shepherdess with only one foot and
a broken crook, the latter ornament evidently having been at one time
prized by the babies of her aunt's family, for the ring at the top was
dented by little teeth.

Nothing, however, could take the curse of ugliness off the staring
gray walls of the room, or from the horrible turkey-red and white
canton-flannel quilt that bedecked the bed. Nan longed to spill the
contents of her ink bottle over that hideous coverlet, but did not dare.

The effort to make the big east room look less like a barn made Nan feel
better in her mind. It was still dreary, it must be confessed. There
were a dozen things she wished she could do to improve it. There
were nothing but paper shades at the windows. Even a simple scrim
curtain-----

And, in thinking of this, Nan raised her eyes to one window to see a
face pressed close against the glass, and two rolling, crablike eyes
glaring in at her.

"Mercy!" ejaculated Nan Sherwood. "What is the matter with that child's
eyes? They'll drop out of her head!"

She ran to the window, evidently startling the peeper quite as much as
she had been startled herself. The girl, who was about Nan's own age,
fell back from the pane, stumbled in the big, men's boots she wore, and
ungracefully sprawled in the snow upon her back. She could not get away
before Nan had the window open.

The sash was held up by a notched stick. Nan put her head and shoulders
out into the frosty air and stared down at the prostrate girl, who
stared up at her in return.

"What do you want?" Nan asked.

"Nothin'," replied the stranger.

"What were you peeping in for?"

"To see you," was the more frank reply.

"What for?" asked Nan.

"Ain't you the new gal?"

"I've newly come here, yes," admitted Nan.

"Well!"

"But I'm not such a sight, am I?" laughed the girl from Tillbury. "But
you are, lying there in the snow. You'll get your death of cold. Get up."

The other did so. Beside the men's boots, which were patched and old,
she wore a woollen skirt, a blouse, and a shawl over her head and
shoulders.