Henrietta, discovering their state of mind, was moved to defiance. Lifting her cup, with a determined glint in her black eyes, she drank every drop in four courageous, continuous gulps. In a twinkling, the other girls had imitated her example and were declining Mrs. Malony's pressing offer of more milk.
"Joost a wee sup," pleaded Mrs. Malony, reaching for Jean's cup.
"No, thank you," said Jean, rising hastily. "We ought to be getting home."
Getting home, however, proved a different matter from getting away from home. After escaping Mrs. Malony's insistent hospitality, the girls waded across the snowy street and out toward the point to see if Rosa Marie's home were still there. The door hung from one hinge and snow had drifted, and was still drifting, in at the doorway.
"Do you think," asked Henrietta, gazing at the deserted house, "that Rosa Marie's mother will ever come back?"
"No," returned Jean.
"Not to any such homely baby as that," declared Marjory.
"She will come back," asserted Mabel, loyally. "She loved Rosa Marie—I saw it in her eyes."
"Looks don't matter, with mothers," soothed Bettie. "A cat likes a homely yellow kitten as well as a lovely white one. And Dick has more freckles than Bob, but Mother likes him just as well."