, and down came half a dozen oval
rugs, braided in Cynthy's best style, that were snapped up at once by the
tent dwellers. Frances bought three to put around in the tent which she
had reserved for Miss Emery.

"Haven't you got some of that painted tinware, too, Sally?" she asked. "I
don't know just what you call it, but I mean the black candlesticks and
little trays with trailing vines on them. I'd like to put some of those
around."

The very next day Helen started off with Piney on the trail of old
candlesticks. They stopped at nearly every house they came to, and
returned with a perfect treasure trove of old relics.

"Why, we found candlesticks stuck out in wood-sheds and corn-cribs, rusty
as could be, but the real thing in colonial art, and mother," Helen added,
almost lowering her voice with a touch of awe, "what on earth do you think
Mrs. Parmalee had on her hen-house door? This!"

She held up an ancient brass knocker, a smiling faun's head encircled in
wreathing vines.

"That doesn't look as if it ever belonged on a Puritan's front door," said
Mrs. Robbins, laughingly. "I rather think it must have come from Merry
Mount, where they held the first Maypole dance and shocked good Cotton
Mather. I think I'll have to buy that from Sally myself."

There were several old lacquered trays and a couple of old gray stone
dasher churns.

"We'll take those and fill them with yellow daisies," Piney said,
admiringly, "and I'll bet a cookie they'll sell the first day to some of
the artist crowd. I found them in the Bennetts' smoke-house covered with
the dust of ages."

It was little things like these that made Sally's shop unusual and
inviting, but Piney started a new venture herself accidentally. She and
Sally had always been chums, and now she spent most of her time helping
her. It became the order of the day for them to have a cup of tea about
four o'clock. Piney would take a candle-stand by the west window and make
it look so inviting with a little strip of homespun linen and a spray of
flowering almond that no one could resist tea from the old blue ware which
Mrs. Peckham had donated.

They were just having tea one afternoon when Miss Emery came in with the
girls from the Academy in New York. There was Frances, and the two Farley
sisters, Gwen and Elise. The other girl was Cecil Fanshawe. Kit had a way
of summing up family history with a few brief, terse remarks, and she had
all four indexed and filed, so to speak.