They had to back out and park on the street, like everyone else, where Shelley and Jane sat staring at the house. "Look at those gables."

"Shelley, I think a gable is the way to refer to the ends of a house. Those are dormers on the third floor."

"I'd rather think of them as gables. The House of Seven Mabels," she added with a laugh.

Jane liked the term. "It's time we go in, whatever you want to call it."

Shelley practically streaked from the car to the front door. Jane followed more slowly, looking closely at the house. She had driven by it innumerable times, but had only glanced at it disapprovingly. It was really a community eyesore. She was constantly expecting to come by and see it leveled to the ground.

But with a practical reason to study it, she found it interesting.

Everyone called it the old Victorian house, but that was only because of the once fancy trim, Jane decided. Not that Jane knew what made a house Victorian anyway. There were all sorts of elaborate gingerbread siding covering it, but it was only in peeling patches now. Jane could imagine that it had been an eye-stopper when it was new.

She could picture it with stark white paint, lighting up the whole neighborhood. Of course there probably wasn't a neighborhood when it was built. It was the sort of house that had probably stood in solitary splendor alone on a good ten acres.

There was a purely Southern verandah stretched across the front and presumably going around

both sides. She hadn't noticed whether it had continued around the back when they had attempted to park there. The third floor had a sloping roof and a plethora of dormer windows — which Shelley insisted were called gables.

She approached closer and walked up the four steps to the front of the house. They'd have to replace those steps. She nearly put her foot through one. Maybe narrower steps and a ramp, so it would be accessible to the disabled or wheelchair-bound.