help to support us, and we shall be on the way to making a
good living----"

"If we aren't dead," sighed 'Phemie. "I _do_ get so tired sometimes. It's
a blessing we got Mother Harrison," for so they had come to call the widow.

"We knew we'd have to work if we took boarders," said Lyddy.

"Goodness me! we didn't know we had to work our fingers to the bone--mine
are coming through the flesh--the bones, I mean."

"What nonsense!"

"And I know I have lost ten pounds. I'm only a skeleton. You could hang me
up in that closet in the old doctor's office in place of that skeleton----"

"What's _that_, 'Phemie Bray?" demanded the older sister, in wonder.

'Phemie realized that she had almost let _that_ secret out of the bag, and
she jumped up with a sudden cry:

"Mercy! do you know the time, Lyd? If we're going to pick those wild
strawberries for tea, we'd better be off at once. It's almost three
o'clock."

And so she escaped telling Lyddy all she knew about what was behind the
mysteriously locked green door at the end of the long corridor of the
farmhouse.

Harris Colesworth, on his early Sunday morning jaunts to the swimming-hole
in Pounder's Brook, had discovered a patch of wild strawberries, and
had told the girls. Up to this time Lyddy and 'Phemie had found little
time in which to walk over the farm. As for traversing the rocky part
of it, as old Mr. Colesworth and Professor Spink did, that was out of the
question.

But fruit was high, and the chance to pick a dish for supper--enough for
all the boarders--was a great temptation to the frugal Lyddy.

She caught up her sunbonnet and pail and followed her sister. 'Phemie's
bonnet was blue and Lyddy's was pink. As they crossed the cornfield, their
bright tin pails flashing in the afternoon sunlight, Grandma Castle saw
them from the shady porch.

"What do you think about those two girls, Mrs. Chadwick?" she demanded of
the little lame girl's mother.

"I have been here so short a time I scarcely know how to answer that
question, Mrs. Castle," responded the other lady.

"I'll tell you: They're wonderful!" declared Grandma Castle. "If my
granddaughters had half the get-up-and-get to 'em that Lydia and Euphemia
have, I'd be as proud as Mrs. Lucifer! So I would."

Meanwhile the girls of Hillcrest Farm had passed through the young
corn--acres and acres of it, running clear down to Mr. Pritchett's
line--and climbed the stone fence into the upper pasture.

Here a p