“Anybody who tries to do good in this world deserves every nice thing that comes to ’em,” said the good woman stoutly, as she securely fastened the top of the hamper. “Now, be gone with you, while I tend to the rest of my baking.”
“But, Mrs. Joyce, we haven’t paid you yet,” protested Betty. “How much——”
“Run along with you,” repeated the big woman, already busy with her oven. “You don’t owe me a cent.”
However, Betty, with Amy’s help did finally get her to consent to take some money for the feast—although it was only a tenth of what it was really worth—and when the girls turned once more toward the cabin of the Old Maid of the Mountains it was with a warm feeling about their hearts.
“There are so many lovely people in the world,” said Amy, contentedly as, with the basket between them, they toiled up the steep ascent.
“I only hope,” said Betty in a low tone, as they stopped before the door of the little cabin, “that our little old lady won’t object to our contributing our feast.”
“I don’t think she will,” returned Amy, “as long as we’re going to eat it too.”
But when the Old Maid of the Mountains saw what that basket contained she was too amazed and bewildered at first to make any protest, if, indeed, she had wanted to. She just sat and stared from one to the other of the girls as though she were trying to figure things out.
“But what are you going to do, my dears?” she asked in a plaintive, uncertain little voice that went to Betty’s heart. “I don’t understand.”
“Why,” explained Betty, gayly, “if you don’t mind, we’ve invited ourselves to dinner with you. That is,” she paused and added with that pretty deference she always paid to the old, “if you are quite sure you don’t mind?”