Let's go over and try, shall we? Come on--everybody!"
Accordingly, the whole company streamed out across the lawn--Charlotte
and Doctor Churchill, Celia, her pretty blond head shining in the
October sunlight, Lanse and Jeff and Just, three stalwart fellows,
ranging in ages from twenty-six to sixteen, Mr. and Mrs. Birch, the
happy possessors of this happy clan.
They hurried up the two steps of the small front porch, into the brick
house, and stampeded into the front room. They stopped opposite the
fireplace, where Doctor Churchill was already triumphantly inserting the
copper panel--for that is what it instantly became--in the long,
horizontal depression in the fireplace.
"It fits to a hair!" he exclaimed, and a general murmur of approbation
arose. Now that the odd gift was where it so clearly belonged, its
peculiar beauty became evident even to the skeptical Jeff and Just.
The new fireplace was the heart of the little old house. Moreover, so
cunningly had it been designed and built that it seemed to have been in
its place from the beginning.
Doctor Churchill and Charlotte had made a certain distant field the
object of many walks and drives, and had personally selected the
"hardheads" of which the fireplace was constructed.
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