`` I 've just dropped in , Miss Blair , '' said that worthy woman , `` to say that I dunno as I mind your making candy once in a while if you want to . Only do be careful not to set the place on fire . Please be particularly careful not to set it on fire . '' `` We 'll try , '' promised Cyrilla with dancing eyes . When the door closed behind Mrs. Plunkett the three girls looked at each other . `` Cyrilla , that idea of yours was a really truly inspiration , '' said Carol solemnly . `` I believe it was , '' said Cyrilla , thinking of Miss Marshall . Dorinda 's Desperate Deed Dorinda had been home for a whole wonderful week and the little Pages were beginning to feel acquainted with her . When a girl goes away when she is ten and does n't come back until she is fifteen , it is only to be expected that her family should regard her as somewhat of a stranger , especially when she is really a Page , and they are really all Carters except for the name . Dorinda had been only ten when her Aunt Mary -- on the Carter side -- had written to Mrs. Page , asking her to let Dorinda come to her for the winter . Mrs. Page , albeit she was poor -- nobody but herself knew how poor -- and a widow with five children besides Dorinda , hesitated at first . She was afraid , with good reason , that the winter might stretch into other seasons ; but Mary had lost her own only little girl in the summer , and Mrs. Page shuddered at the thought of what her loneliness must be . So , to comfort her , Mrs. Page had let Dorinda go , stipulating that she must come home in the spring . In the spring , when Dorinda 's bed of violets was growing purple under the lilac bush , Aunt Mary wrote again . Dorinda was contented and happy , she said . Would not Emily let her stay for the summer ? Mrs. Page cried bitterly over that letter and took sad counsel with herself . To let Dorinda stay with her aunt for the summer really meant , she knew , to let her stay altogether . Mrs. Page was finding it harder and harder to get along ; there was so little and the children needed so much ; Dorinda would have a good home with her Aunt Mary if she could only prevail on her rebellious mother heart to give her up . In the end she agreed to let Dorinda stay for the summer -- and Dorinda had never been home since .
But now Dorinda had come back to the little white house on the hill at Willowdale , set back from the road XXXXX a smother of apple trees and vines .
albeit as behind besides in into of on that until