"If Rosa Marie had been an ordinary child," explained Jean, "she would probably have howled; but you see, every blessed thing about us was so new and strange to her that she just thought that everything we did was all right. And anyhow, she doesn't have the same sort of feelings that Anne Halliday does. Anne would have cried."
"You naughty, naughty children," scolded Mrs. Mapes, "to keep a secret like that for five whole weeks."
"But, Mother," protested Jean, gently, "we never supposed it was going to be a five-weeks-long secret. We didn't want it to be. We've been expecting her horrid mother to turn up every single minute since Rosa Marie came."
"It was all my fault," declared loyal Mabel. "They'd have told, the very first minute, if it hadn't been for me. Blame me for everything."
"What," asked Mrs. Bennett, "do you intend to do with that—that atrocious child?"
"She isn't atrocious!" blazed Mabel, with sudden fire. "She's a perfect darling, when you get used to her, and I love her. She isn't so very pretty, I know, but she's just dear. She's good, and that—and that's—Why! You've said, yourself, that it was better to be good than beautiful."
"But what do you intend to do with her?" persisted Mrs. Bennett.
"Keep her," said Mabel, firmly. "She doesn't eat anything much but milk and sample packages."
"You can't. I won't have her in my house. Why! Her parents are probably dreadful people."
"That's why she ought to have me for a mother and you for a grandmother," pleaded Mabel, earnestly. "But if you don't like her, I'll keep her here."