“No, it’s no bad news,” he said, and came close.  “It’s just—­can you bear up?—­another impending guest!  Charlotte, I’ve done a lot of talking about hospitality, and I meant it all.  I certainly want our latch-string always out, but—­don’t you think we rushed that copper motto into place just a bit too soon?”

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

“Charlotte, what are we going to do?  It turns out Lee has his sister with him!”

Mrs. Andrew Churchill, engaged in making up a fresh bed with linen smelling faintly of lavender, dropped her sheets and blankets and stood up straight.  She gazed across the room at Andy, whose face expressed both amusement and dismay.

“Andy,” said she, “haven’t I somewhere heard a proverb to the effect that it never rains but it pours?”

“There’s an impression on my mind that you have,” said her husband.  “You are now about to have a practical demonstration of that same proverb.  I wrote Lee, as you suggested after his second telegram, and this is his answer.  He was detained by the illness of his sister Evelyn, who is with him.  It seems she was at school up here in our state, but overworked and finally broke down, and he has come to take her home.  But you see home for them means a boarding-house.  The family is broken up, mother dead, father at the ends of the earth; and Lee has Evelyn on his hands.  The worst of it is, he wants me to see her professionally, so I can’t very well suggest that we’re too full to entertain her.”

“Of course you can’t,” agreed Charlotte, promptly.  “But it means that we must find another room somewhere in the house.  Of course mother would—­but I don’t want to begin right away to send extra guests over there.”

“Neither do I,” said Doctor Churchill.  “Do you suppose we could put a cot into my private office for Lee?  Then the sister could have this.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen, he says.”

“Oh, then this will do.  And we can put a cot in your private office—­after office hours.  If Mr. Lee is an old friend he won’t object to anything.”

“You’re a dear girl!  And they won’t stay long, of course—­especially when they see how crowded we are.  You’ll like Thorne Lee, Charlotte; he’s one of the best fellows alive.  I haven’t seen the sister since she was a small child, but if she’s anything like her brother you’ll have no trouble entertaining her, sick or well.  All right!  I’ll answer Lee’s letter, and say nothing about our being full-up.”

“Of course not; that wouldn’t be hospitality.  When will they come?”

“In a day or two—­as soon as she feels like travelling again.”

“I’ll be ready for her,” and Charlotte gave him her brightest smile as he hurried off.

She finished her bed-making, put the little room set apart for her own private den into guest-room condition as nearly as it was possible to do with articles of furniture borrowed from next door, and went down to break the news to Mrs. Fields.  She found that person explaining with grim patience to the Peyton children why they could not make candy in her kitchen at the inopportune hour of ten in the morning.