"My soul an' body!" she said. "Whatever will you do next!"
Mary Rose saw Mr. Jerry in his car in the alley and ran to the open window to tell him of the pleasure that was in store for her.
"Mr. Jerry! Oh, Mr. Jerry! I'm going to the lake with the enchanted princess. Don't you wish you were me?"
Mr. Jerry waved his hand as he smiled and nodded, but Mary Rose did not wait to hear whether he would like to change places with her, for she had to slip out of the plaid skirt and middy blouse into a white frock that Aunt Kate had shortened.
"Isn't it the luckiest thing that Ella had so many beautiful clothes!" she said breathlessly. "I shouldn't want to go out with Miss Thorley in that horrid boys' suit."
She was ready first, and as she waited in the lower hall she talked to Mrs. Schuneman about Germania. Miss Thorley found them together when she came down, looking exactly like a princess to Mary Rose, in her white linen skirt and lingerie blouse and with a big black hat all a-bloom with pink roses on her red-brown head.
"I was ready first," Mary Rose cried happily, "but I didn't mind waiting, for I was talking to a friend, to Mrs. Schuneman. She has Germania, you know. This is my friend, Miss Thorley, Mrs. Schuneman." She introduced them politely.
Miss Thorley nodded carelessly, but even a careless glance told her that there was not the sign of a grouch on Mrs. Schuneman's fat red face that day. Indeed, it quite beamed with friendliness as she hoped that they would have a good time.
"You see, she's very pleasant when you know her," Mary Rose explained as they walked over to the street car. "That's why it's so important to know people. If you don't really know them, you might often think they were grouchy when they aren't."