“The lovely Mrs. Bob wants to invest in our tea-room,” she told them. “You say your mother spoke of four hundred, Babbie. Well, Mrs. Bob says she’ll put in the same, and after Betty’s salary is paid and the other expenses, the profits are to be divided—that’s what you said was right, isn’t it, Dick?”
“But half my profits go to Madeline,” Mrs. Bob took her up, “for the inspirations.”
“Then I know mother will want half hers to go that way, too,” put in Babbie, “and I shall take the other half, to pay her up for being pessimistic about profits. She just laughed when I spoke of them.”
“Well, it will be all kinds of fun, anyway,” said Madeline. “Goodness, but I feel as if the worst was over now! Does any one know about early trains up to Harding? By the way, father hasn’t cabled, so I suppose this domicile is to let. Just spread the report, please, everybody, and I’ll come back in a few days to see about it. It’s just as well, because I suppose I’ve got to live in Harding now. I never could manage long-distance inspirations.”
The three girls departed early to pack and telegraph Mary Brooks Hinsdale that her “standing invitation” to come and visit her should stand no longer unheeded by her little friends of old.
So perhaps it hadn’t been a wasted day after all, Betty thought, falling asleep while Madeline was still busily discussing where they should live in Harding, and how much they ought to pay the tea-shop for their meals, if they ate them there.
CHAPTER V
THE REAL THING
Mary’s “beamish” smile was dimmed when she met her guests at the station.
“I’m just terribly glad to see you all,” she explained, “and to-morrow we can begin to have some fun. But to-night I have an awfully particular faculty dinner-party on, and what do you think? My cook has gone and caught the jaundice.” Mary’s tone was positively tragic.
“This is what you get for marrying a distinguished member of the faculty,” Madeline told her, patting her shoulder sympathetically. “But don’t you give that very particular dinner-party another thought, my child. What’s the point of having a full-sized catering company invade your happy little home if you don’t make use of them?”