“It isn’t when they are busy that I feel anxious about them,” sighed Ursula, “but when they are idle. Please hunt up more duties for them.”
“Poor dears! Don’t they eat up all the cold waffles? What more could we demand?” laughed Josie. “Don’t you remember how sorry we always felt about the cold waffles, girls?”
“Yes indeed, the Higgledy Piggledy garbage pail always mortified me,” said Elizabeth. “No matter how carefully one plans there are always cold waffles to be disposed of. Even my mother, who is an excellent manager, I can tell you, has never mastered the cold waffle problem.”
“Well, it is no problem here,” smiled Ursula. “In fact there is nothing left over since you dear girls insisted upon my giving my boys their supper here. I wish I could tell you what it means to me, having this place and being able to see Ben and Philip all the time.”
“Well I wish you knew what it means to us to have our tea room run like a smart New York shop, with never a hitch and more and more persons praising it and bringing their friends here to treat them—to say nothing of the empty garbage pail. If things don’t stop prospering so we are going to have to get new quarters, girls. Do you realize that?” queried Josie.
“Oh, but please don’t let’s leave the dear old shop,” begged Elizabeth. “These have been the happiest months of my whole life, I truly believe. If we have to expand, let’s expand upward or downward. Why not see about the rooms above or the rickety old store below?”
“Turn out the cleaners and dyers below, who certainly smell most vilely and increase our insurance rates one hundred per cent and make a kind of lunch club down there! Great scheme!” exclaimed Josie. “What does our sage Irene think?”
“I think it is a fine idea but it would need a good deal of capital to start such an undertaking,” said Irene thoughtfully. “Let’s go slowly until we find someone with capital to invest.”
“I wish I could command my own little fortune,” blushed Ursula. “I haven’t much—at least I don’t think I have, but what I own I have no more power over than if it wasn’t mine. My stepfather, Mr. Cheatham, has entire control of everything connected with my father’s estate.”
“Can’t you go to law about it?” asked Elizabeth.