"Yes," said Mr. Black, "it's the most successful dinner party I've ever attended. Of course I can't hope to equal it, but as soon as Sarah and I get to keeping house properly and have decided which is to pour the coffee, we're going to return the compliment with a dinner that will make your eyes stick out, aren't we, Sarah?"
"Oh, we'll do a great deal more than that," responded generous Mrs. Crane. "We'll keep four extra places set at our table all the time."
"Of course we will," cried Mr. Black, heartily. "And we'll fill the biggest case in the library with children's books—we'll all go tomorrow to pick out the first shelfful—so that when it gets too cold for you to stay in Dandelion Cottage you'll have something to take its place. You're going to be little sunny Dandelions in the Black-Crane house whenever your own people can spare you. But what's the matter? Have you all lost your tongues? I didn't suppose you could be so astonishingly quiet."
"Oh," sighed Bettie, joyfully, "you've taken such a load off our minds. We were simply dreading the winter, with no cottage to have good times in."
"Yes," said Jean. "We didn't know how we could manage to live with the cottage closed. We've been wondering what in the world we were going to do."
"But with school, and you dear people to visit every day on the way home," said Marjory, "we'll hardly have time to miss it. Oh! won't it be perfectly lovely?"
"I'm going to begin at once to practice being on time to meals," said Mabel. "I'm not going to let that extra place do any waiting for me."
These were the things that the four girls said aloud; but the joyous look that flashed from Jean to Bettie, from Bettie to Marjory, from Marjory to Mabel, and from Mabel back again to Jean, said even more plainly: "Now there'll be somebody to take care of Mrs. Crane. Now there'll be somebody to make a home for lonely Mr. Black."
And indeed, subsequent events proved that it was a beautiful arrangement for everybody, besides being quite the most astonishing thing that had happened in the history of Lakeville.