Before the other girls had had time to discover what had become of her, the proprietor of the lemonade stand marched into the cottage and proudly displayed four shining nickels and the empty pitcher.
"Why, where in the world did you get all that?" cried Marjory. "Surely you never earned it by being on time for meals—you've been late three times a day ever since we got the cottage."
"Sold lemonade," said Mabel. "Our troubles are over, girls. I'm going to buy two lemons tomorrow and sell twice as much."
"Good!" cried Bettie, "I'll help. The boys have promised to bring me a lot of arbutus tonight—they went to the woods this morning. I'll tie it in bunches and perhaps we can sell that, too."
"Wouldn't it be splendid if we could have Mr. Black here to dinner next Saturday?" said Jean. "I'll never be satisfied until we've kept that promise, but I don't suppose we could possibly get enough things together by that time."
"I have a sample can of baking powder," offered Marjory, hopefully. "I'll bring it over next time I come."
"What's the good?" asked matter-of-fact Mabel. "We can't feed Mr. Black on just plain baking powder, and we haven't any biscuits to raise with it."
"Dear me," said Jean, "I wish we hadn't been so extravagant at first. If we hadn't had so many tea parties last week, we might get enough flour and things at home. Mother says it's too expensive having all her groceries carried off."
"Never mind," consoled Mabel, confidently. "We'll be buying our own groceries by this time tomorrow with the money we make selling lemonade. A boy said my lemonade was quite as good as you can buy at the circus."
Unfortunately, however, it rained the next day and the next, so lemonade was out of the question. By the time it cleared, Bettie's neat little bunches of arbutus were no longer fresh, and careless Mabel had forgotten where she had put the money. She mentioned no fewer than twenty-two places where the four precious nickels might be, but none of them happened to be the right one.