“Oh, how pretty!” Josie exclaimed.  “It makes one think of high-waisted dresses, and minuets and things like that.”

Pauline laughed.  “They were my great-grandmother’s bed curtains.”

“Goodness!  What are you going to do with them?”

“I’m not sure mother will let me do anything.  I came across them just now in looking for some green silk she said I might have to cover Hilary’s pin-cushion with.”

“For the new room?  Patience has been doing the honors of the new paper and matting—­it’s going to be lovely, I think.”

Pauline scrambled to her feet, shaking out the chintz:  “If only mother would—­it’s pink and green—­let’s go ask her.”

“What do you want to do with it, Pauline?” Mrs. Shaw asked.

“I haven’t thought that far—­use it for draperies of some kind, I suppose,” the girl answered.

They were standing in the middle of the big, empty room.  Suddenly, Josie gave a quick exclamation, pointing to the bare corner between the front and side windows.  “Wouldn’t a cozy corner be delightful—­with cover and cushions of the chintz?”

“May we, mother?” Pauline begged in a coaxing tone.

“I suppose so, dear—­only where is the bench part to come from?”

“Tom’ll make the frame for it, I’ll go get him this minute,” Josie answered.

“And you might use that single mattress from up garret,” Mrs. Shaw suggested.

Pauline ran up to inspect it, and to see what other treasures might be forthcoming.  The garret was a big, shadowy place, extending over the whole house, and was lumber room, play place and general refuge, all in one.

Presently, from under the eaves, she drew forward a little old-fashioned sewing-chair, discarded on the giving out of its cane seat.  “But I could tack a piece of burlap on and cover it with a cushion,” Pauline decided, and bore it down in triumph to the new room, where Tom Brice was already making his measurements for the cozy corner.

Josie was on the floor, measuring for the cover.  “Isn’t it fun, Paul?  Tom says it won’t take long to do his part.”

Tom straightened himself, slipping his rule into his pocket.  “I don’t see what you want it for, though,” he said.

“‘Yours not to reason why—­’” Pauline told him.  “We see, and so will Hilary.  Don’t you and Josie want to join the new club—­the ’S.  W. F. Club’?”

“Society of Willing Females, I suppose?” Tom remarked.

“It sounds like some sort of sewing circle,” Josie said.

Pauline sat down in one of the wide window places.  “I’m not sure it might not take in both.  It is—­’The Seeing Winton First Club.’”

Josie looked as though she didn’t quite understand, but Tom whistled softly.  “What else have you been doing for the past fifteen years, if you please, ma’am?” he asked quizzically.

Pauline laughed.  “One ought to know a place rather thoroughly in fifteen years, I suppose; but—­I’m hoping we can make it seem at least a little bit new and different this summer—­for Hilary.  You see, we shan’t be able to send her away, and so, I thought, perhaps, if we tried looking at Winton—­with new eyes—­”