Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/27

 left her guest leisure to lean back in her chair, sip her milk and watch, through the rain-spattered glass, a wet robin taking refuge from the rain below the dormer window ledge.

"Yes," Betsey assented, in answer to one of the last questions, "I like the school work well enough, but sometimes it seems very long and hard and I cannot help thinking about—other things. I begin to believe these last months of the term will never end."

Miss Miranda had risen to fetch another ball of yarn and was standing now by the big mahogany secretary beyond the fireplace. Elizabeth was just begining [sic] to notice what a wonderful old piece of furniture it was, so large that it occupied almost all of one side of the room. It had brass-handled drawers below and, above, glass doors that opened upon a perfect labyrinth of shelves, recesses and deep pigeonholes. She caught sight of something glittering on the topmost shelf.

"Oh, please, could I see what that is?" she begged. "The little tree—and oh, that silver figure just below. I never saw anything quite like them before."

Most willingly Miss Miranda threw both the doors wide open.

"This is the family toy-cupboard," she said. "The desk itself belonged to my great-grandfather, who was an officer in the Navy, and who used it to