"Is—can it be a real child?" demanded Bettie.
"This," announced Mabel, with dignity, "is my child. Her name is Rosa Marie—with all the distress on the ee."
"The distress seems to be all over both of you," giggled Marjory.
"That's just dust," explained Mabel.
"Did you both roll home like a pair of barrels?" queried Jean, "or did the Village Improvement folks use you to dust the sidewalks?"
"What's the matter with that child's complexion?" demanded Marjory. "Is she tanned?"
"Coming home took long enough for us both to get tanned," returned Mabel, crossly, "but Rosa Marie's French, I guess."
"French! French nothing!" exclaimed Marjory. "She's nothing but a little wild Indian. Look at her hair. Look at her small black eyes. Look at her high cheekbones. Where in the world did you get her?"
Mabel explained. For once, the girls listened with the most flattering attention. Anne Halliday bobbed her pretty head to punctuate each sentence, the Tucker babies stood in silence with their mouths open, even the nicely laid-out Marcotte twins on the sofa sat up to hear the tale.
"And she's all mine until six o'clock," concluded Mabel, triumphantly.