Meanwhile Mr. Dartmoor had returned to his study thinking of the three children who had just departed. “A merry brood!” he said aloud, but his smile faded when he looked at the painting of his granddaughter. “Poor Evelyn!” he thought, “I wish that I knew how to make you happy.”

Then sitting at his desk, he picked up his morning mail and found on top a letter from his granddaughter.

Opening it, he read,

“My poor little lassie!” Mr. Dartmoor said as he sat with the letter open in his hand and looked up at the painting. “But Madame Deriby is right! Evelyn should have a companion, some one bright and cheery, yet, some one who could understand.”

At that very moment Mr. Dartmoor saw, in his memory, Carol’s sweet face, and the tears brimming her eyes, as she said, “I did so want to go to boarding-school myself, but I would far rather have my mother.”

“The very thing!” exclaimed Mr. Dartmoor aloud as he rang a bell and ordered his carriage. Soon he was being driven down the country road toward the brown house on the edge of the village.

David upon hearing the wheels in the drive ran to a front room window where he could get a better view. Dorothy skipped to join him and then she called excitedly, “Carol, look quick! Here is your ogre coming to pay you a visit.”

“He isn’t an ogre, so now!” David protested. “He’s Santa Claus!” Just at that moment Mr. Lorens entered the dining-room. “What are the twins so excited about?” he inquired.

“They say that Mr. Dartmoor is coming up the drive,” Carol replied.

“You delivered the papers, did you not, daughter?” her father asked anxiously.

“Yes, Dad, I gave them to Mr. Dartmoor himself.”

Just then the bell rang, and Mr. Lorens, hoping that nothing had been wrong with the legal document which he had prepared with great care, went to open the door.

When greetings had been exchanged, Mr. Dartmoor asked if he might speak for one moment with Mr. and Mrs. Lorens.

Wondering what the conference was to be about, Mr. Lorens called his wife, and together they went into a small room which Peter had named his “Den.”

Carol, like the good little housekeeper that she was, finished cooking the supper and placed it in the warming-oven to wait the reappearance of her parents.

The twins, in the outer hall, watched the closed door curiously and tried to guess what their Santa Claus was talking about.

At last, to their great relief, the door opened and their mother beckoned to them. David darted in ahead of the others, but no one reproved his forgotten manners, instead, their parents were smiling as though some great good fortune had befallen them.

“Carol,” Mrs. Lorens exclaimed, taking her daughter’s hand, “what do you suppose that Mr. Dartmoor has been telling us?”

“Something nice, I am sure,” that girl replied, “for you and Dad look so happy.”

“I hope that you will think that it is nice,” the old gentleman said kindly. “Carol, I want you to go to Linden Hall Seminary to be a roommate and companion for my granddaughter Evelyn. Will you go?”

“Oh, Mr. Dartmoor!” the girl exclaimed joyfully. “How I would love to go if Mother could spare me, but who would help her around the house?”

“I would!” cried little Dorothy clapping her hands. “Mother said that I might be her helper some day, and this is some day, isn’t it, Mummie?”

Mrs. Lorens smiled brightly. It was hard for her to speak, her heart was so full. The advantages which she had so wished her daughter to have were to come in a beautiful way, for Carol was to give much in exchange.

“Then it is all settled, and I am truly grateful to your father and mother for permitting you to go. It will mean more than I can tell you to my lonely granddaughter.”

Then, before the girl could express the gratitude and joy which she felt, Mr. Dartmoor was gone.

The next afternoon when the Sunny Seven trooped out of their school, they found Carol Lorens waiting for them under the elm-tree.

Her eyes were glowing like two stars and Adele, catching her hand, said:

“Why, Carol, what good news have you to tell us? Have you found out where you are to go to school?”

Carol nodded. “That’s why I came to-day,” she said, “because I can’t be here to-morrow to attend the meeting of the Sunnyside Club.”

Betty Burd clapped her hands gleefully as she cried, “Oh, I can guess where you are going. To a girls’ boarding-school somewhere.”

“Right you are!” Carol replied, looking brightly around at the eager group, and then she told them all the wonderful things that had happened since she had last seen them.

“You will love Evelyn Dartmoor!” Doris Drexel exclaimed. “I met her when she and her mother spent a few days here last spring.”

“Oh, I just know that I shall love her!” Carol replied, and then she added impulsively, “Girls, you have all been so good to me! You can’t guess what it means to a stranger to be treated so kindly. I expected to be lonely and left out and you have been just like old friends. How I do wish that you were going to boarding-school with me.”

“Queer things happen!” Adele replied. “Maybe your wish will come true.”

Adele spoke jokingly, for little did she dream that queer things were to happen, and soon.