The world was full of summer sunshine after the rain.  It was a peerless day for house-cleaning and Faith and Una went gaily to work.

“We’ll clean the dining-room and the parlour,” said Faith.  “It wouldn’t do to meddle with the study, and it doesn’t matter much about the upstairs.  The first thing is to take everything out.”

Accordingly, everything was taken out.  The furniture was piled on the veranda and lawn and the Methodist graveyard fence was gaily draped with rugs.  An orgy of sweeping followed, with an attempt at dusting on Una’s part, while Faith washed the windows of the dining-room, breaking one pane and cracking two in the process.  Una surveyed the streaked result dubiously.

“They don’t look right, somehow,” she said.  “Mrs. Elliott’s and Susan’s windows just shine and sparkle.”

“Never mind.  They let the sunshine through just as well,” said Faith cheerfully.  “They must be clean after all the soap and water I’ve used, and that’s the main thing.  Now, it’s past eleven, so I’ll wipe up this mess on the floor and we’ll go outside.  You dust the furniture and I’ll shake the rugs.  I’m going to do it in the graveyard.  I don’t want to send dust flying all over the lawn.

Faith enjoyed the rug shaking.  To stand on Hezekiah Pollock’s tombstone, flapping and shaking rugs, was real fun.  To be sure, Elder Abraham Clow and his wife, driving past in their capacious double-seated buggy, seemed to gaze at her in grim disapproval.

“Isn’t that a terrible sight?” said Elder Abraham solemnly.

“I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” said Mrs. Elder Abraham, more solemnly still.

Faith waved a door mat cheerily at the Clow party.  It did not worry her that the elder and his wife did not return her greeting.  Everybody knew that Elder Abraham had never been known to smile since he had been appointed Superintendent of the Sunday School fourteen years previously.  But it hurt her that Minnie and Adella Clow did not wave back.  Faith liked Minnie and Adella.  Next to the Blythes, they were her best friends in school and she always helped Adella with her sums.  This was gratitude for you.  Her friends cut her because she was shaking rugs in an old graveyard where, as Mary Vance said, not a living soul had been buried for years.  Faith flounced around to the veranda, where she found Una grieved in spirit because the Clow girls had not waved to her, either.

“I suppose they’re mad over something,” said Faith.  “Perhaps they’re jealous because we play so much in Rainbow Valley with the Blythes.  Well, just wait till school opens and Adella wants me to show her how to do her sums!  We’ll get square then.  Come on, let’s put the things back in.  I’m tired to death and I don’t believe the rooms will look much better than before we started—­ though I shook out pecks of dust in the graveyard.  I hate house-cleaning.”