When Rowena's aunt read this she wiped her glasses and gazed at the child and then read the article aloud to her.
Rowena skipped all about the room in her happiness.
"What is all this," asked her aunt, "about the Princess speaking through you?"
"I think that is a joke," replied Rowena. "One of the selected men was funny and nice."
When she went to school the next day the children had all heard what was in the newspaper, and heard that it was Rowena who had spoken for the princess. They whispered among themselves, and when she appeared seemed almost afraid of their changed playmate, but she did not notice this at all. The chief thing any little girl can do to be happy is to forget all about herself, and Rowena's mind was so full of her hopes for the river that she went right up to the other children and said:
"Who will join the Polawee Club?"
"What is that?" asked the others.
"Why," said Rowena, "I think it would be fun to get together and make the bank of the river pretty. The girls can plant flowers and the boys can make benches and put them in the nicest places, and we shall all be helping to make the Polawee become again a good little clear, clean, lovable stream."
The children only stared at first, but Rowena looked so eager and happy, and seemed so changed in the pretty dress which her aunt had told her she could now wear to school, and since even their fathers had listened to her and taken her advice, they began to think that they might do so too.