“We’d try not to give you any trouble,” said Ethel Blue.  “One of us would stay here every day to look after it and we’d pay rent for the use of the space.”

“Upon my word!” exclaimed Miss Foster again.  “You must let me think a minute.”

She was a rapid thinker and her decision was quickly made.

“We’ll try it for a week,” she said.  “Perhaps we’ll find that there isn’t enough demand for the flowers to make it worth while, though people often want to buy any flowers they see here, as those people you saw did.”

“If you’ll tell us just what space we can have we’ll try not to bother you,” promised Ethel Blue again, and Miss Foster smiled at her eagerness.

“We want it to be a regular business, so will you please tell us how much rent we ought to pay?” asked Ethel Brown.

Miss Foster smiled again, but she was trying to carry on a regular business herself and she knew how she would feel if people did not take her seriously.

“We’ll call it five per cent of what you sell,” she said.  “I don’t think I could make it less,” and she smiled again.

“That’s five cents on every dollar’s worth,” calculated Ethel Brown seriously.  “That isn’t enough unless you expect us to sell a great many dollars’ worth.”

“We’ll call it that for this trial week, anyway,” decided Miss Foster.  “If the test goes well we can make another arrangement.  If you have a pretty table it will be an attraction to my hall and perhaps I shall want to pay you for coming,” she added good naturedly.

She pointed out to them the exact spot on which they might place their flowers and agreed to let them arrange the flowers daily for her rooms and tables and to pay them for it.

“I have no flowers for cutting this summer,” she said, “and I’ve been bothered getting some every day.  It has taken George’s time when he should have been doing other things.”

“We’ll do it for the rent,” offered Ethel Blue.

“No, I’ve been buying flowers outside and using my own time in arranging them.  It’s only fair that I should pay you as I would have paid some one long ago if I could have found the right person.  I stick to the percentage arrangement for the rent.”

On the way home the girls realized with some discomfiture that without consulting Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith they had made an arrangement that would keep them away from home a good deal and put them in a rather exposed position.

“What do you suppose Mother and Aunt Louise will say?” asked Ethel Brown doubtfully.

“I think they’ll let us do it.  They know we need the money for Rose House just awfully, and they like Miss Foster and her mother—­I’ve heard Aunt Marion say they were so brave about undertaking the Inn.”

Her voice quavered off into uncertainty, for she realized as she spoke that what a young woman of Miss Foster’s age did in connection with her mother was a different matter from a business venture entered into alone by girls of fourteen.