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.
"Bravo!" cried Mother, coming in with a tray full of things.

"This is something like! I'll just get a tablecloth and then--" The tablecloth was in a box with a proper lock that was opened with a key and not with a shovel, and when the cloth was spread on the table, a real feast was laid out on it.
Everyone was very, very tired, but everyone cheered up at the sight of the funny and delightful supper.

There were biscuits, the Marie and the plain kind, sardines, preserved ginger, cooking raisins, and candied peel and marmalade.
"What a good thing Aunt Emma packed up all the odds and ends out of the Store cupboard," said Mother.

"Now, Phil, DON'T put the marmalade spoon in among the sardines." "No, I won't, Mother," said Phyllis, and put it down among the Marie biscuits.
"Let's drink Aunt Emma's health," said Roberta, suddenly; "what should we have done if she hadn't packed up these things?
Here's to Aunt Emma!" And the toast was drunk in ginger wine and water, out of willow-patterned tea-cups, because the glasses couldn't be found.
They all felt that they had been a little hard on Aunt Emma.