“Praise be, fresh air costs nothing!”

“That’s one thing we’ll get free,” laughed Roger.  “Grandfather told me to investigate and see what I could find out about finances and then let him know.  So I went in to see Mr. Watkins.”

“And never told me,” said Tom reproachfully.

“Of course not.  All of you people were too sniffy.  I told your father what the plan was and what Grandfather had said.  He thought it was great.  He’s a corker, your father is.”

Delia and Tom looked somewhat startled at this epithet describing their parent, but Roger meant it to be complimentary, so they made no remonstrance.

“He said right off that he could provide the women and children in any numbers and that he’d select the ones that needed the change most and would be most benefited by it.”

“It’s not hard to find those,” murmured Delia.

“Then he said that he had certain funds that he could draw on for such cases and that he’d be just as willing to pay the board for these women and children at Rosemont as anywhere else, so that we could depend on a small sum for each one of them from the treasurer of the chapel.”

“That ought to cover the expense of their food,” said Helen, “but we’ll have to have a housekeeper and a cook.”

“That’s what Aunt Louise said.”

“Oho, you’ve been talking with Mother about it!” exclaimed Dorothy.

“I knew the Club would come to me sooner or later, it was only a matter of time, so I made ready to answer some of the questions you’d be asking me.”

They laughed at Roger’s preparedness, but nodded approvingly.

“Aunt Louise said she’d pay the wages of the cook, and then I toddled off to Grandmother Emerson and told her I was planning to raid her attic for old furniture, and asked her incidentally if she thought we could run the thing without a housekeeper.”

“I hope she said ’yes’,” exclaimed Margaret, who liked to administer a household.

“Grandmother was very polite; she said she thought the U. S. C. could do anything it set out to do, but that there would be countless odds and ends that would occupy us all summer long—­”

“Like making a continuous stream of furniture!”

“And going marketing and doing errands.”

“And mowing the grass.”

“And playing games with the kids.”

“O, a thousand things would crop up; we never could be idle; and so she thought we’d better have a responsible woman as housekeeper.  What’s more she said she’d pay her.”

“It wouldn’t be polite for me to say about a lady what you said about Mr. Watkins,” said James—­

“For which I apologize,” declared Roger parenthetically.

“—­but I’d like to remark that she’s one of the most reliable grandmothers I ever had anything to do with!”

They all laughed again.

“Where we’ll get these two women I don’t know,” said Roger.  “My researches stopped there.  But I suppose it wouldn’t be difficult.”