Enthusiastic Henrietta, that odd mixture of extreme youth and premature age, was all impatience to see Rosa Marie. She had telephoned her grandmother to ask permission to spend the day with her new friends, and now she was eager to add Rosa Marie to the list. It was easy to see that she was expecting to behold something very choice in the line of babies. Jean was tempted to undeceive her, but loyalty to Marjory kept her silent.
"A baby," breathed Henrietta, rapturously, "is the loveliest thing in all the world. Isn't it most two o'clock? Wait, I'll look at my watch—Mercy! I forgot to wind it!"
"Hark!" said Jean, "I think I hear the girls. Yes, I do."
"Get on your things," commanded Marjory, opening the door. "Bettie stopped to feed the cat, sew a button on Dick, wash Peter's face, tie up her father's finger and hook her mother's dress, but she's here at last and we're to pick up Mabel on the way because Dr. Bennett called her back to wash her face."
"We mustn't stay too long," warned Jean, glancing at the dull sky. "It looks as if it would get dark early."
Mrs. Crane was glad to see her visitors and appeared delighted to add a new girl to her collection of youthful friends.
"You and Jean are just of a size," said she.
"And about the same age," added Bettie, who had always regretted the two years' difference in her age and Jean's. "I wish I were as old as that."
"Aren't you afraid," blundered well-meaning Mrs. Crane, turning to Bettie, "that she'll cut you out? You and Jean have always been as thick as thieves. Don't you let this pretty Henrietta steal your Jean away from you."