"You trump!" cried Bob with an enthusiasm that prevented any suspicion of disrespect.
"I heard a boy say lately that he would not live in the country for anything," observed Miss Bradbury with her twinkle.
"But to save his mother, and when he didn't know how he could live anywhere!" cried Bob.
"You dear, dear, blessed Aunt Keren!" cried Happie, throwing herself upon her adopted relative with an abandon which, under ordinary circumstances that lady would have disapproved.
"There, there! I suppose it is a relief," she said patting Happie's back. "But I warn you that it will not be at all attractive, probably. I took it for a debt, and my debtor said afterwards, so I am told, that it was cheaper to give it to me than to keep it. I suspect that he pretended not to be able to pay me in money in order to get rid of this farm. So you may be prepared for going into the wilderness. However, it will be a wilderness of pure air and great altitude, and we can exist somehow. It will undoubtedly build up poor Charlotte."
"I am going to like it," Happie declared. "I learned to like tomatoes, and I thought that in all this world I could never taste them a second time. And I love olives now, but when I first tried one, I really had to rush away from the table. So I am going to love that farm no matter what it is. How could we help loving a place that cured motherkins?"
"Aunt Keren, you are an angel in disguise," announced Laura solemnly.
"I must admit the disguise," retorted Miss Bradbury. "Now, children, I want you to get ready to go out of town in two weeks from now. Can you do it?"
"Yes, but we have a lease of the Patty-Pans; we shall have to sub-let it," said Margery, with the tiny anxious line appearing in her forehead.
"Furnished," supplemented Miss Bradbury. "I shall send up all the furniture necessary. There is some furniture there; I don't know how much, nor how good."