They wasted little time in getting ready--Betty and Mollie had appointed themselves a committee of two to bring in the grips from Mollie's car--and before long they tasted the exquisite restfulness of comfortable beds after a long nerve-trying day in the out-of-doors.
"I don't believe I shall close my eyes all night," said Amy with conviction. "I'm too horribly nervous."
But three minutes later she was sound asleep!
The sun had been up a good two hours before any one stirred in Wild Rose Lodge. Betty was the first to awake, and in fifteen minutes she had the rest of the sleepy-eyed and protesting girls up and nearly dressed.
"What's the idea, anyway?" yawned Grace lazily. "I could have slept at least a good two hours more."
"On a day like this?" sang Betty, breathing in deep breaths of the wood-scented air. "And isn't this just the dearest room you ever saw?" she added, wheeling about and regarding the apartment delightedly. They were in Grace and Amy's room, for, as usual, Mollie and Betty had been the first dressed and had gone into their churns' room to hurry them up --if such a thing were possible.
Betty's summing up of the room they were in was indeed well deserved, for the place was charming. There was a dresser, a bed, and three chairs, and all of these articles of furniture had been rough-hewed out of logs, giving the place a delightfully rustic appearance. There was a grass rug on the floor and in one corner a little table covered with books.
"Isn't it darling?" cried Mollie, following Betty's glance about the place. "Uncle John built the lodge and made all of the furniture himself, you know. And he bought the grass rugs from the Indians."
They were still exclaiming about the place when Mrs. Irving called to them that breakfast was ready. With a whoop of delight they answered the summons, and a moment later sat themselves down to a most satisfying meal of omelet and toast and coffee with real cream in it. Also Mrs. Irving set on the table a yellow-topped pitcher of milk fresh from the cow.
"Our friend, Lizzie Davis, brought it," their chaperon answered with a smile, in response to the girls' curious questions. "Also some fresh butter and eggs. I have an idea," she added, as she got up to refill the butter plate, "that we shall live on the fat of the land while we are here."