Just drop a little candle-grease in the saucer and stick the candle
upright in it."

"How many shall we light?"

"As many as ever you like," said Mother, gaily. "The great thing is
to be cheerful. Nobody can be cheerful in the dark except owls and
dormice."

So the girls lighted candles. The head of the first match flew off
and stuck to Phyllis's finger; but, as Roberta said, it was only a
little burn, and she might have had to be a Roman martyr and be
burned whole if she had happened to live in the days when those
things were fashionable.

Then, when the dining-room was lighted by fourteen candles, Roberta
fetched coal and wood and lighted a fire.

"It's very cold for May," she said, feeling what a grown-up thing it
was to say.

The fire-light and the candle-light made the dining-room look very
different, for now you could see that the dark walls were of wood,
carved here and there into little wreaths and loops.

The girls hastily 'tidied' the room, which meant putting the chairs
against the wall, and piling all the odds and ends into a corner and
partly hiding them with the big leather arm-chair that Father used
to sit in after dinner.