When the door opened a moment later to admit the finger-bowls and all four of the girls, who had licked the ice-cream platter and had nothing more to do in the kitchen since everything had been served--there, to the housekeepers' unbounded amazement, were Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane, with their arms stretched across the little table, holding each other's middle-aged hands in a tight clasp, and both had tears in their eyes.

The girls looked at them in consternation.

"Was--was it the dinner?" ventured Mabel, at last. "Was it as bad as--as all that?"

"Well," said Mr. Black, rising to go around the table to place an affectionate arm across Mrs. Crane's plump shoulders, "it _was_ the dinner, but not its badness--or even its very goodness."

"I guess you'd better tell 'em all about it, Peter," suggested Mrs.

Crane, whose eyes were shining happily. "It's only fair they should know about it--bless their little hearts."

"Well, you see," said Mr. Black, who, as the girls had quickly discovered, was once more their own delightfully jolly friend, "once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a black-eyed girl named Sarah, and a two-years-younger boy, who looked a good deal like her, named Peter, and they were brother and sister. They were all the brothers and sisters that each had, for their parents died when this boy and girl were very young. Peter and Sarah used to dream a beautiful dream of living together always, and of going down hand-in-hand to a peaceful, plentiful old age. You see, they had no other relative but one very cross grandmother, who scolded them both even oftener than they deserved--which was probably quite often enough. So I suspect that those abused, black-eyed, half-starved children loved each other more than most brothers and sisters do."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Crane, nodding her head and smiling mistily, "they certainly did. The poor young things had no one else to love."

"That," said Mr. Black, "was no doubt the reason why, when the headstrong boy grew up and married a girl that his sister didn't like, and the equally headstrong girl grew up and married a man that her brother _couldn't_ like--a regular scoundrel that--"

"Peter!" warned Mrs. Crane.

"Well," said Mr. Black, hastily, "it's all over now, and perhaps we _had_ better leave that part of it out. It isn't a pretty story, and we'll never mention it again, Sarah. But anyway, girls, this foolish brother and sister quarreled, and the brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law and even the grandmother, who was old enough to know better, quarreled, until finally all four of those hot-tempered young persons were so angry that the brother named Peter said he'd never speak to his sister again, and the sister named Sarah said she'd never speak to her brother again--and they haven't until this very day. Just a pair of young geese, weren't they, Sarah?"

"Old geese, too," agreed Mrs. Crane, "for they've both been fearfully lonely ever since and they've both been too proud to say so. One of them, at least, has wished a great many times that there had never been any quarrel."

"_Two_ of 'em. But now this one," said Mr. Black, placing his forefinger against his own broad chest, "is going to ask this one--" and he pointed to Mrs. Crane--"to come and live with him in his own great big empty house, so he'll have a sister again to sew on his buttons, listen to his old stories, and make a home for him. What do you say, Sarah?"

"I say yes," said Mrs. Crane; "yes, with all my heart."

"And here," said Mr. Black, smiling into four pairs of sympathetic eyes, "are four young people who will have to pretend that they truly belong to us once in a while, because we'd both like to have our house full of happy little girls. You never had any children, Sarah?"

"No, and you lost your only one, Peter."

"Yes, a little brown-eyed thing like Bettie here--she'd be a woman now, probably with children of her own."

"It's--it's just like a story," breathed Bettie, happily. "We've been part of a real story and never knew it! I'm so glad you let us have Dandelion Cottage, _so_ glad we invited you to dinner, and that nothing happened to keep either of you away."

"Peter and I are glad, too," said Mrs. Crane, who indeed looked wonderfully happy.

"Yes," said Mr. Black, "it's the most successful dinner party I've ever attended. Of course I can't hope to equal it, but as soon as Sarah and I get to keeping house properly and have decided which is to pour the coffee, we're going to return the compliment with a dinner that will make your eyes stick out, aren't we, Sarah?"

"Oh, we'll do a great deal more than that," responded generous Mrs.

Crane. "We'll keep four extra places set at our table all the time."

"Of course we will," cried Mr. Black, heartily. "And we'll fill the biggest case in the library with children's books--we'll all go tomorrow to pick out the first shelfful--so that when it gets too cold for you to stay in Dandelion Cottage you'll have something to take its place.

You're going to be little sunny Dandelions in the Black-Crane 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?"

"I'm going to begin at once to practice 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 from Jean to Bettie, from Bettie to Marjory, from Marjory to Mabel, and from Mabel back again to Jean, said even more plainly: "_Now_ there'll be somebody to take care of Mrs. Crane. _Now_ there'll be somebody to make a home for lonely Mr. Black."

And indeed, subsequent events proved that it was a beautiful arrangement for everybody, besides being quite the most astonishing thing that had happened in the history of Lakeville.