The Jamestown colony, like the great undertaking after which it was patterned, had many ups and downs,—­flourishing when Jake and Peter could steal off to be Indians and new settlers, and then being neglected and almost deserted.  Anne and Lizzie found the most beautiful place to play keeping house.  On the hillside, there were two great rocks, full of the most delightful nooks and crevices.  One of these rocks was Anne’s home, the other was Lizzie’s.  In the moss-carpeted rooms, lived daisy ladies, with brown-eyed Susans for maids.  They made visits and gave dinner parties, having bark tables set with acorn-cups and bits of broken glass and china.  They had leaf boats to go a-pleasuring on the spring brook where they had wonderful adventures.

Rainy days put an end to outdoor delights, but they only gave more time for indoor games with their neglected dolls.

After breakfast one rainy morning, Lizzie asked her mother for some scraps—­she didn’t want any except pretty ones—­to make dresses for Honey-Sweet and Nancy Jane.  Mrs. Collins replied that she had no idea of wasting her good bed-quilt and carpet-rag pieces on such foolishness as doll dresses.  But when ten minutes later the girls went back to repeat their request, they found Mrs. Collins rummaging a bureau drawer.  Thence she produced two generous pieces of pretty dimity,—­Honey-Sweet’s was buff with little rose sprigs and Nancy Jane’s had daisies on a pale-blue ground.

While Lizzie was busy making doll dresses, Anne got a book with pictures in it and gave forth a story with a readiness that amazed Mrs. Collins.

“Ain’t you a good reader!” she exclaimed.  “You read so fast I can’t understand half you say.”

“I’m not reading all that,” honesty compelled Anne to confess, as she beamed with pleasure at Mrs. Collins’s praise.  “I read when the words are short, and when they’re long and the print’s solid, I make it up out of my head to fit the pictures.”

“Ah! you come of high-learnt folks,” said Mrs. Collins, admiringly.  “Now, my Jake and Peter, they can’t read nothing but what’s in the book and that a heap of trouble to ’em.  And Lizzie here, she’s wore out two first readers and don’t hardly know her letters yet.”

Lizzie soon tired of sewing and she and Anne pattered off through the halls to the bareness and strangeness of which Anne could not get used.  Where, she wondered, were the people in tarnished gilt frames—­slim smiling ladies and stately gentlemen with stocks and wigs—­that used to be there?  The two girls played lady and come-to-see in the bare up-stairs rooms awhile.  Then Anne said, “Lizzie, I’m going up the little ladder into the attic and walk around the chimneys.”

“Don’t!  It’s dark up there,” shuddered Lizzie.

“Dark as midnight,” agreed Anne; “heavy dark.  You can feel it.  It’s the only place I used to be afraid of.  I have to make myself go there.”

“Why?” asked Lizzie.