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But to-day, ah! who would have dreamed that sweet little Bab could become such a fright?  She had done up her hair the night before on as many as twenty curl-papers.  Before starting for the air-castle she had taken out some of the papers and found—­not ringlets, but wisps of very unruly hair.  It would not curl any more than water will run up hill.

She went to Aunt Lucy in her trouble to seek advice.  Aunt Lucy looked her over with great care and then announced:—­

“It is perfectly awful!  Don’t take out any more papers, Bab.  Let ’em be, so you can have something to stick the curls on to.”

And so it was done.  The “curls,” as Lucy was pleased to call them, were drawn up and looped and twisted and fastened by hair-pins to the other curls left in the papers.  The effect was most surprising.  It made Bab’s head so much higher than usual that she was as tall now as auntie, and that in itself was a great gain.  Besides, this style, as Lucy said, was the “pompy-doo,” and very fashionable!

If Bab could have kept her hat on!  But she couldn’t, and the moment it came off they all cried out:—­

“Why-ee, Barbara!” and turned away to laugh.

If Mrs. McQuilken had been there she would have said the child looked “as if she was possessed of the fox.”

“The little goosies!  Let them enjoy it!” whispered Mrs. Hale to Mrs. Dunlee.  “But those topknots will have to come down before the child can go to the dinner-table.”

And then both the ladies laughed privately behind a large tree.  The mountain air was doing them good, and they often had as merry times together as the young people.

“Hear the boyoes,” cried Edith, meaning Jimmy and Nate, who had now reached the air-castle and were shouting with all their might.  The children ran, and so indeed did the older ones, for there was an excellent path all the way.

“So that is the air-castle,” exclaimed Kyzie, when they were all within sight of it.  “It’s a real house, built right in the mountain.”

She was right.  There happened to be a great crack right here in the rocky side of the mountain, and a cunning little house had been tucked into the crack.  It was built of small stones.  It had two real windows with glass panes, and a real door with a brass knocker, which the children declared was “too cute for anything.”

“The house is as strong as a fort,” said Uncle James.  “Do you observe it is walled all around with stones?”

“Do you know who built it?” asked Aunt Vi; “and why he built it?”

“A rich Mexican named Bandini.  He admired the view from the mountain, and I don’t blame him, do you?  He wanted a nice, quiet place where he could read and write; that was why he came here.  He has been here every summer for years.”

“Well,” said Mr. Dunlee, “if you call this an air-castle I must say it is the most solid one I ever heard of!  It doesn’t look dreamy at all.  Why, an earthquake could hardly shake it.”