After the ungainly figure had shuffled away, the children still continued to make plans and offer suggestions for the new arrangement.
"We must be very methodical," said Dorothy, who was much in earnest in the matter, and who wanted to start out just right. "Mrs. Faulkner is so nice and sweet, I want to please her; and, too, if the Dorrances run a hotel, I want it to be run on the most approved plan."
"We'll each have an account book," said Fairy; "and I'll put down in mine, how many times I sweep the verandas each day."
"If you get around them all in one day, baby," said Leicester, "you'll do mighty well; and to do that, you'll have to get to work at daybreak and stick to it till sundown. There's an awful big number of square feet of veranda attached to this palatial mansion, I can tell you."
"Oh, pooh!" cried Fairy. "It won't take me all day, at all. I can fly around it in a minute. I'll work like a centripepede!"
"We'll keep the horse for this week, anyway," went on Dorothy; "for I shall have to go to market every morning, and it's so much quicker to go in the carriage than the boat. Sometimes you can go for me, Less, if I make out an exact list of what I want."
"All right," said her brother; "I don't think this keeping boarders is going to be such hard work after all. I wonder we didn't think of it sooner."
"I'm glad we didn't," said Dorothy; "I think it was nicer to have a few weeks all by ourselves, first. We've got to behave when the Faulkners get here. It will be just like it was at Mrs. Cooper's, you know."
This time Fairy started the groan, and again they all chimed in with those deep growling wails that always made Mrs. Dorrance clap her hands to her ears.
"For pity's sake!" exclaimed the long-suffering old lady; "don't make any reference to Mrs. Cooper while the Faulkners are here; for if they heard those fearful groans of yours, they'd leave at once."