“You can’t tell me much about carriages.  But what I want to know is where Lita will stay?” said Ben.

“Oh, she’s to be up at the Squire’s, till things are fixed, and you are to bring her down.  Squire came and told Ma all about it, and said you were a boy to be trusted, for he had tried you.”

Ben made no answer, but secretly thanked his stars that he had not proved himself untrustworthy by running away, and so missing all this fun.

“Wont it be fine to have the house open all the time?  We can run over and see the pictures and books whenever we like.  I know we can, Miss Celia is so kind,” began Betty, who cared for these things more than for screaming peacocks and comical donkeys.

“Not unless you are invited,” answered their mother, locking the front door behind her.  “You’d better begin to pick up your duds right away, for she wont want them cluttering round her front yard.  If you are not too tired, Ben, you might rake round a little while I shut the blinds.  I want things to look nice and tidy.”

Two little groans went up from two afflicted little girls as they looked about them at the shady bower, the dear porch, and the winding walks where they loved to run “till their hair whistled in the wind,” as the fairy-books say.

“Whatever shall we do!  Our attic is so hot and the shed so small, and the yard always full of hens or clothes.  We shall have to pack all our things away and never play any more,” said Bab, tragically.

“May be Ben could build us a little house in the orchard,” proposed Betty, who firmly believed that Ben could do anything.

“He wont have any time.  Boys don’t care for baby-houses,” returned Bab, collecting her homeless goods and chattels with a dismal face.

“We sha’n’t want these much when all the new things come; see if we do,” said cheerful little Betty, who always found out a silver lining to every cloud.

CHAPTER VIII.

MISS CELIA’S MAN.

Ben was not too tired, and the clearing-up began that very night.  None too soon, for, in a day or two, things arrived, to the great delight of the children, who considered moving a most interesting play.  First came the phaeton, which Ben spent all his leisure moments in admiring, wondering with secret envy what happy boy would ride in the little seat up behind, and beguiling his tasks by planning how, when he got rich, he would pass his time driving about in just such an equipage, and inviting all the boys he met to have a ride.

Then a load of furniture came creaking in at the lodge gate, and the girls had raptures over a cottage piano, several small chairs, and a little low table, which they pronounced just the thing for them to play at.  The live stock appeared next, creating a great stir in the neighborhood, for peacocks were rare birds there; the donkey’s bray startled the cattle and convulsed the people with laughter; the rabbits were continually getting out to burrow in the newly made garden; and Chevalita scandalized old Duke by dancing about the stable which he had inhabited for years in stately solitude.