The snow had stopped and the sun was shining, which meant that the white covering would not last long.  But it gave a touch of winter to Washington, and the children liked it.

Down the street went the six children, two by two, the four Bobbsey twins and Nell and Billy Martin.  Flossie and Freddie walked together, then came Billy and Bert, while Nan walked with Nell.

“Here’s a store where they have nice things,” said Nell, as they stopped in front of one, the windows of which held all sorts of light and pretty articles, from fans and postcards to vases and pocket knives, some with tiny photographic views of Washington set in the handles.

“Let’s go in there and buy something,” proposed Bert.

In they trooped, and you may well believe me when I say that the woman who kept this store had a busy half-hour trying to wait on the four Bobbsey twins at once.  Nell and Billy did not want to buy anything, but the Bobbseys did.

At last, however, each one had bought something, and then Bert said: 

“I know where to go next.”

“Where?” asked Nan.

“Around the corner,” her brother answered as they came out of the souvenir shop.  “There’s a cheaper place there.  I looked in the windows yesterday and saw the prices marked.  We haven’t got much money left, and we’ve got to go to a cheap place for the rest of our things.”

“All right,” agreed Nan, and Bert led the way.  The other store, just as he said, was only around the corner, and, as he had told his sister, the windows were filled with many things, some of them marked at prices which were very low.

Suddenly, as Nan was peering in through the glass, she gave a startled cry, and, plucking Bert by the sleeve, exclaimed: 

“Oh, look!”

CHAPTER XX

A GREAT BARGAIN

Bert Bobbsey turned to look at his sister Nan.  She was staring at something in the jumble of articles in the second-hand shop window, and what she saw seemed to excite Nan.

“What is it?  What’s the matter?” asked Bert, as Nan, once more, exclaimed: 

“Look!  Oh, look!”

“Is it a fire?” eagerly asked Freddie, as he wiggled about to get a better view of the window, since Bert and Nan stood so near it he could not see very well.  “Is it a fire?”

“Oh, you and your fires!” laughed Nell, as she put her hands lovingly on his shoulders.  “Don’t you ever think of anything else?”

“Oh, is it a fire?” asked Freddie again.

“No, there isn’t any fire,” answered Billy, laughing, as his sister Nell was doing, at Freddie’s funny ideas.

“But it’s something!” insisted Flossie, who had, by this time, wiggled herself to a place beside Freddie, and so near the window that she could flatten her little nose against it.

“What is it you see, Nan?” asked Bert.  “If it’s more souvenirs I don’t believe we can buy any.  My money is ’most gone.”