"That's what you called Lucas--at first," admonished Lyddy. "And they're both real kind. Lucas wouldn't take a cent for mending the pump, and Sairy came especially to invite us to the Temperance Club meeting, at the schoolhouse Saturday night, and to go to church in their carriage with her and her mother on Sunday." "Yes; I suppose they _are_ kind," admitted 'Phemie. "And they can't help being funny." "Besides," said the wise Lyddy, "if we _do_ try to take boarders we'll need Lucas's help. We'll have to hire him to go back and forth to town for us, and depend on him for the outside chores. Why! we'd be like two marooned sailors on a desert island, up here on Hillcrest, if it wasn't for Lucas Pritchett!" The girls spent a few anxious days waiting for Aunt Jane's answer. And meantime they discussed the project of taking boarders from all its various angles. "Of course, we can't get boarders yet awhile," sighed 'Phemie. "It's much too early in the season." "Why is it? Aren't _we_ glad to be here at Hillcrest?" demanded Lyddy. "But see what sort of a place we lived in," said her sister. "And lots of other people live hived up in the cities just as close, only in better houses. There isn't much difference between apartment-houses and tenement-houses except the front entrance!" "That may be epigrammatical," chuckled 'Phemie, "but you couldn't make many folks admit it." "Just the same, there are people who need just this climate we've got here at this time of year. It will do them as much good as it will father." "You'd make a regular sanitarium of Hillcrest," cried 'Phemie. "Well, why not?" retorted Lyddy. "I guess the neighbors wouldn't object." 'Phemie giggled. "Advertise to take folks back to old-fashioned times and old-fashioned cooking." "Why not?" "Sleeping on feather beds; cooking in a brick oven like our great-great-grandmothers used to do! Open fireplaces. Great!" "Plain, wholesome food. They won't have to eat out of cans. No extras or luxuries. We could afford to take them cheap," concluded Lyddy, earnestly. "And we'll get a big garden planted and feed 'em on vegetables through the summer." "Oh, Lyddy, it _sounds_ good," sighed 'Phemie. "But do you suppose Aunt Jane will consent to it?" They received Aunt Jane's letter in reply to their own, on Saturday. * * * * * "You two girls go ahead and do what you please inside or outside Hillcrest," she wrote, "only don't disturb the old doctor's stuff in the lower rooms of the east ell. As long as you don't burn the house down I don't see that you can do any harm. And if you really think you can find folks foolish enough to want to live up there on the ridge, six miles from a lemon, why go ahead and do it. But I tell you frankly, girls, I'd want to be paid for doing it, and paid high!"