"Valley Mead" was proving the most marvelous of forbidden playthings, and
was doing for Randolph Bartlett what doctors and sanitariums and tears
and threats had failed to do. The old place had been overhauled, the
house made habitable, and now that furnishing was in progress, each day
brought new and fascinating developments.
Eleanor had arrived from school just in time to fling herself heart and
soul into the enterprise. By a happy chance she had been allowed to spend
the week with the Randolph Bartletts, only reporting to her grandmother
from time to time for consultations regarding summer clothes. Her strange
indifference to this usually all-important question, together with her
insistent plea to remain in Kentucky all summer, might have aroused the
old lady's suspicion had she not long ago decided that the explanation of
all Eleanor's motives was perversity.
Every morning Eleanor and Mrs. Ranny went out to the farm, and worked
with enthusiasm. Each piece of furniture that was taken out of the crate
was hailed with delight and dragged from one place to another to try its
effect. The hanging of curtains was suspended while they rushed out to
see the newly arrived rabbits with their meek eyes and tremulous pink
mouths, or dashed out to the poultry-yard to have another look at the
downy little fluffs of yellow that were pretending to be chickens.
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