DOROTHY and her mother had a room in a house near the trolley gate. When they had first come to Chautauqua the year before a sign in front of the house had attracted their attention. It read:
LIGHT HOUSE
KEEPING
PERMITTED
Light housekeeping was just what Mrs. Smith wanted to do, so she made inquiries and was able to complete arrangements so satisfactory that she went to the same place when she returned for this second summer.
There were several reasons why she did not want to go to a boarding house. In the first place she wanted to have her expenses as small as possible, and in the next she wanted to teach Dorothy something about cooking, for she believed that every girl ought to know something of this important branch of home-making and in the wandering life they had led it had not always been possible for them to live otherwise than in a boarding house.
"You can take the domestic science work at the Girls' Club," she had said, "and then we can have our little home here and you can apply your knowledge for our own benefit."
So well had this plan worked and so competent had Dorothy become in simple cooking that this summer she was specializing in cooking for invalids.
"It's mighty lucky I took the invalids' cooking," she exclaimed as her mother came in from the art store at noon the day after the fire, and sat down to the nice little dinner that Dorothy had prepared.
"It's one of the things that may be valuable to you in many ways and at any time."
"It's valuable now. Have I told you about my friends at the Girls' Club, two cousins, both named Ethel Morton?"
"Morton? What are their fathers' names? Where do they live?" said Mrs. Smith, speaking more quickly than was usual with her.