Three Girls in a Flat

MP3 Audio CD. Three Girls in a Flat

CHAPTER I.

IT was growing late and Gene and the Duke were dressing for dinner in the great dreary room in the boarding-house owned in partnership by the girls. The Duke had let down the masses of her blue-black hair, while Gene was engaged in untangling a refractory shoe-lace, when a little knock came at the door, and a moment after Marjorie entered. She looked pale and worn, and as the girls looked up with a welcoming smile, Gene said, "What's the matter, dear, you look so tired to-night." Marjorie threw herself into a chair, and said, "It's the flat again. I have just had a note from Mrs. Black, saying that owing to a sudden change in her husband's business they have been called to New York, and now that white elephant is on my hands once more." "What is the flat?" asked the Duke, with interest. "Why, don't you know?" said Gene; "it has been the bane of Marjorie's existence for the last two years, for it contains all of her mother's furniture which she does not want to store, and the people to whom she rents it are always getting sick or leaving town, or for some reason or other giving it up, so it is on her hands again." "Where is it?" demanded the Duke. "Why, it is only two blocks down the street and in a very pleasant neighborhood, and for my part I wish we lived in it instead of in this dreary old boarding-house, where we can't get a thing to eat if we are not on time for meals." "Why not go to housekeeping?" cried the Duke, and the same thought came like a flash to all three, and then and there, regardless of the approaching dinner, they sat down to discuss eagerly the ways and means of accomplishing their object.

Two weeks later the girls came home to their own hearth and fireside. They had brought two friends with them to spend the night, and when the five girls gathered around the snowy table, with its bunch