Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/339

 Rh  house whenever your own people can spare you. But what's the matter? Have you all lost your tongues? I didn't suppose you could be so astonishingly quiet."

"Oh," sighed Bettie, joyfully, "you've taken such a load off our minds. We were simply dreading the winter, with no cottage to have good times in."

"Yes," said Jean, "we didn't know how we could manage to live with the cottage closed. We've been wondering what in the world we were going to do."

"But with school, and you dear people to visit every day on the way home," said Marjory, "we'll hardly have time to miss it. Oh! won't it be perfectly lovely? And won't Aunty Jane be glad?"

"I'm going to begin at once to practise being on time to meals," said Mabel. "I'm not going to let that extra place do any waiting for me."

These were the things that the four girls said aloud; but the joyous look that flashed