"Oh, spliffy! Renée--come on! I've the best plan!" That it was to be a secret was certain! She caught Renée's two hands and dragged her from the room, leaving Aunt Pen convulsed with laughter.
There ensued, then, from the third floor, between the lunch hour and the afternoon study period, a rumbling like thunder, mingled with pounding and scraping and bursts of laughter. To add to the mystery Pat rushed downstairs to return shortly with broom and dustpan and a mob cap over her dark head.
Not until the next afternoon was the secret revealed! Then with much ceremony Pat and Renée escorted Aunt Pen to the third floor. For years the low-gabled room stretching across the east wing of the house had served as a sewing room where the Archer sisters had worked stitching frocks for Celia and Pat and mending the household linen. The Archer sisters--Pat had always thought they looked like gnomes---were dead now and Mrs. Everett had the girls' dresses made by a downtown dressmaker. The room had not been used for a long time.
Now upon its door had been nailed an imposing and elaborately decorated sign which read: "Eagles' Eyrie." And beneath that, emphasizing its warning with a skull and crossbones, was another sign: "No Admittance."
"Three knocks and then a quick one is the signal," explained Pat mysteriously; "and you and Sheila and Peggy and Keineth and True Scott are the only ones that will know it--except, of course, Ren and me!"
Pat was unlocking the door as she spoke. She threw it open proudly. "This isn't going to be any silly club!" she explained. "Everyone that comes here must work! That desk over there is mine and Renée has this table because she can paint on it and the light's good. And that big table is for the other girls, only we have to keep it against the wall 'cause one leg's off!"
A few hours' work had utterly transformed the room and had removed all traces of the patient Archer sisters and their livelihood. The floor, very dusty in spots, was covered with strips of an old hall carpeting which, when hardwood floors had been laid, had been stored away. Pat had also resurrected from the storeroom the antiquated desk and tables and a dilapidated assortment of chairs. Over one of these, to add a note of elegance to the room, she had thrown an old Bagdad lounge cover and across the windows the girls had hung pieces of faded velour, replaced a few years before in the living rooms below. The air was heavy with the smell of camphor and dust; the three-legged table had a pathetically helpless look, a corner of the wall was stained from a leak in the roof, but to Pat and Renée it was an inspiring retreat!
"My account books are there in my desk, and I'll have you know, Aunt Pen, that 'LaDue and Everett' have gotten orders for ten bushels of apples which wasn't bad for one afternoon's work and for girls, too!" declared Pat.
"Oh, that reminds me!" Aunt Pen's voice was as enthusiastic as that of the junior member of the firm. "I have an order for LaDue and Everett! Miss Higgins will take twelve of the Christmas cards! I showed her one this morning. She is going to put them on sale in her tea room. She may order more! You must decide as to your prices, Renée."
Renée was too delighted to answer. Pat fairly bubbled with excitement. She caught Aunt Pen and Renée in a whirling step that almost completely demolished an ancient chair that lay in her mad path.