"Breakfast ready?" cried Brian at the kitchen-door, and his voice was so
hearty and natural that the girl answered as naturally: "It will be
as soon as you are ready for it. I forget, do you like your eggs three
minutes or four?"

They really managed that breakfast very well, even if they did sit
opposite each other so that each was forced to look straight across
the table into the face of the other. Or, perhaps, it was because they
looked at each other so straight and square and frankly honest that the
breakfast went so well.

And because the breakfast went so well, they managed the dinner and the
supper also.

"I have been thinking," said Brian at the close of their evening meal,
looking straight into the gray eyes over the table, "perhaps it might be
better for you to stay at neighbor Tom's until Auntie Sue returns. I'll
hitch up 'Old Prince' and drive you over, if you say. Or, we might find
some neighbor woman to come here to live with us, if you prefer."

"You don't like my housekeeping, then?" asked Betty Jo.

"Like it!" exclaimed Brian; and the tone of his voice approached the
danger-point.

Betty Jo said quickly: "I'll tell you exactly what I think, Mr. Burns:
Auntie Sue said we were to be good children, and take care of things
until she returned. She did not say for me to shirk my part by going to
neighbor Tom's or by having any one come here. Don't you think we can do