"'I haven't seen a canary bird for years,' she murmured."
Mary Rose answered her impulsively as she usually answered people. "Would you like to have her visit you until I come back? I'm not going to take her with us. She wouldn't be any trouble. She's used to visiting. All you have to do is to let her have a chair or a table to sit on." She offered the cage generously.
The old lady seemed to hesitate. She looked like Gladys' grandmother, only not so comfortable, Mary Rose thought. At last she held out her hand.
"I declare I don't know but I will let you leave it with me. I'm all alone, and even a bird is company."
"Jenny Lind's splendid company. Shall I put her on the table for you? There! I'll run up before supper and get her. And don't you worry, because Uncle Larry said the law doesn't say one word about birds." And before startled Mother Johnson could ask her what she meant by the law, she ran off, stumbling down the two flights of stairs to the basement. Only the special Providence that looks after children saved her.
Aunt Kate was in the kitchen and she exclaimed in surprise when she heard that Mary Rose was going to the lake with Miss Thorley and had left Jenny Lind to spend the afternoon with the grandmother on the second floor.
"My soul an' body!" she said. "Whatever will you do next!"
Mary Rose saw Mr. Jerry in his car in the alley and ran to the open window to tell him of the pleasure that was in store for her.
"Mr. Jerry! Oh, Mr. Jerry! I'm going to the lake with the enchanted princess. Don't you wish you were me?"
Mr. Jerry waved his hand as he smiled and nodded, but Mary Rose did not wait to hear whether he would like to change places with her, for she had to slip out of the plaid skirt and middy blouse into a white frock that Aunt Kate had shortened.
"Isn't it the luckiest thing that Ella had so many beautiful clothes!" she said breathlessly. "I shouldn't want to go out with Miss Thorley in that horrid boys' suit."
She was ready first, and as she waited in the lower hall she talked to Mrs. Schuneman about Germania. Miss Thorley found them together when she came down, looking exactly like a princess to Mary Rose, in her white linen skirt and lingerie blouse and with a big black hat all a-bloom with pink roses on her red-brown head.
"I was ready first," Mary Rose cried happily, "but I didn't mind waiting, for I was talking to a friend, to Mrs. Schuneman. She has Germania, you know. This is my friend, Miss Thorley, Mrs. Schuneman." She introduced them politely.
Miss Thorley nodded carelessly, but even a careless glance told her that there was not the sign of a grouch on Mrs. Schuneman's fat red face that day. Indeed, it quite beamed with friendliness as she hoped that they would have a good time.
"You see, she's very pleasant when you know her," Mary Rose explained as they walked over to the street car. "That's why it's so important to know people. If you don't really know them, you might often think they were grouchy when they aren't."