Betty laughed delightedly.

“How very complimentary,” she said, with a droll twist to the corner of her mouth.  “Never mind, Mollie, it’s worth a quarter just for seeing crooked!”

Mollie hugged her, and even Grace had to laugh.

“Which reminds me,” continued Betty, apropos of nothing at all, “that we have a whole holiday which we can spend just exactly as we please.”

“Yes, where shall we go?” cried Amy eagerly.  “I thought maybe we could take Mollie’s car and—­and—­”

Three pairs of curious eyes were focused upon her as she hesitated.

“And what?” they queried in chorus.

“Well, I thought,” continued Amy, a little shy, as she always was when about to suggest something for another’s comfort, “I thought we might invite Mrs. Sanderson to go along.”

“Good for you, Amy dear,” cried Betty eagerly.  “That’s just exactly what I was thinking.  The dear old lady seemed so much better yesterday I thought we might persuade her to share our picnic with us.  How about it, Mollie?”

“Why, of course,” answered the latter heartily, “I’d love to have her—­if she’d come.”

“If she’d come?” repeated Amy, puzzled.  “Why shouldn’t she come—­that is, if she’s feeling strong enough?”

“Well,” explained Mollie, with a little smile as she recalled one of the many unusual conversations she had had with the little old woman, “she told me the other day that she ’hated them gasoline wagons worse than poison,’—­that the only reason she rode in ours was because she was unconscious when we put her in and she couldn’t help herself.  And she added somebody’d have to run over her again to make her do it a second time.”

Betty laughed gayly as she flung back the covers and slipped out of bed.

“Goodness, I don’t wonder you were doubtful,” she said.  “Maybe she’s changed her mind by this time.  Anyway, we can ask her and see.”

“I think she’s the most wonderful old person I ever saw,” remarked Amy thoughtfully, as they dressed hastily.  “She must be pretty old, and yet she says the funniest, wittiest things, and her eyes sparkle and twinkle like a girl’s.”

“Well, I really think she looks older than she really is,” said Grace slowly and very judicially.  “You know working on a farm in the hot sun the way she did for years, isn’t calculated to make a person look younger than she is.”

“Oh, and if we could only do something to find him for her!” sighed Amy for—­the girls did not know whether it was the fiftieth or the hundredth time, they had given up counting.

“Well, wishing won’t accomplish anything,” said Mollie practically, as she vigorously pulled on a shoe as if it were in some mysterious way responsible for the unsatisfactory state of affairs.  “I think some one ought to nickname us the ‘four Dianas.’”

“Well, of course Diana was very beautiful,” said Grace, complacently regarding her own pretty reflection in the mirror.  “But if you meant that, Mollie, of course the description applies to only one of us.”