They hugged each other in their happiness and the tears were not far from the eyelids of both of them, for Mrs. Smith had not known anything but the actual necessities of living for many years and Dorothy had never known many comforts that had been every day matters and not luxuries to her mother's youth.
So Mrs. Smith hired the white cottage and she and Dorothy moved in at once. A cousin of Mary, Mrs. Morton's old servant, who had been Dicky's nurse, came to work for them, and by the time of the first meeting of the United Service Club Dorothy felt so settled in her new home that she wanted to have the meeting in the living-room or the big attic just to see how it felt to be entertaining people in her own house.
"I think I wouldn't suggest it this time," Mrs. Smith warned her. "Helen is the president, you see, and it seems more suitable for the first meeting to be held at her house. Ask if you mayn't have the next one here. How often are you going to meet?"
"I hope it will be once a week, and so does Ethel Blue. She thinks there's plenty of occupation to keep a service club busy all the time."
At noon the sun disappeared and the Rosemont members of the U. S. C. began to have doubts as to whether the Hancocks and Watkinses would appear.
"Even if it rains hard I think James and Margaret will come," said Helen. "The trolley brings them almost from their door to ours; but I don't feel so sure about the Watkinses."
"It doesn't take but ten minutes longer for them to come out from New York than for the Hancocks to come over from Glen Point."
"But they have to cross the ferry and take the train and it seems more of an undertaking than just to hop into a street car."
"It's getting so dark and gloomy—what do you say if you Ethels make some candy to enliven the afternoon?"
"Is there time before they come?"