Marjorie had been fanning herself with her broad brim, she let it fall in
her eagerness and her eyes were two convincing arguments against the
truth of her own theory, for they were two emphasized exclamation points;
sometimes when she was very eager she doubled herself up and made an
interrogation point of herself.

"Up in my room on the table you will find paper and pencil; please bring
them to me."

Marjorie flew away and Miss Prudence gave herself up to her interrupted
reverie. To-day was one of Miss Prudence's hard-working days; that is, it
was followed by the effect of a hard-working day; the days in which she
felt too weak to do anything beside pray she counted the successful days
of her life. She said they were the only days in her life in which she
accomplished anything.

Marjorie was at home in every part of her grandfather's queer old house;
Miss Prudence's room was her especial delight. It was a low-studded
chamber, with three windows looking out to the sea, the wide fireplace
was open, filled with boughs of fragrant hemlock; the smooth yellow
floor with its coolness and sweet cleanliness invited you to enter; there
were round braided mats spread before the bureau and rude washstand, and
more pretentious ones in size and beauty were laid in front of the red,
high-posted bedstead and over the brick hearth. There were, beside, in
the apartment, two tables, an easy-chair with arms, its cushions covered
with red calico, a camp stool, three rush-bottomed chairs, a Saratoga
trunk, intruding itself with ugly modernness, also, hanging upon hooks,
several articles of clothing, conspicuously among them a gray flannel
bathing suit. The windows were draperied in dotted swiss, fastened back
with green cord; her grandmother would never have been guilty of those
curtains. Marjorie was sure they had intimate connection with the
Saratoga trunk. Sunshine, the salt-breath of the sea and the odor of pine
woods as well!

There were rollicking voices outside the window, Marjorie looked out and
spied her five little cousins playing in the sand. Three of them held in
their hands, half-eaten, the inevitable doughnut; morning, noon, and
night those children were to be found with doughnuts in their hands.

She laughed and turned again to the contemplation of the room; on the
high mantel was a yellow pitcher, that her grandmother knew was a hundred
years old, and in the centre of the mantel were arranged a sugar bowl and
a vine