"Your Aunt Kate is a very wise, wise woman. It's a pity others can't see it." He sighed and looked at Miss Thorley, who stroked George Washington's gray overcoat and refused to lift her eyes to meet his.
"If they could they'd have old heads on young shoulders, perhaps," suggested Mary Rose. "You wouldn't like that, would you? Just suppose Mrs. Schuneman's head was on Miss Thorley's shoulders. How would you like that?"
"I shouldn't like it at all. I shouldn't want any head on Miss Thorley's shoulders but her very own. It suits me there—perfectly." Mr. Jerry eyed Miss Thorley rather critically and screwed his eyes half shut as Miss Thorley did when she was looking at the model she was painting, and his voice was as firm as a voice could be. "Even to have her as wise as your Aunt Kate I shouldn't want her to have Mrs. Schuneman's head."
"And just suppose you had Mr. Wells' head and he had yours?" giggled Mary Rose.
Mr. Jerry tweaked her pink ear. "Mr. Wells wouldn't keep my head for a minute. Perhaps it is just as well to leave heads where they are."
"I used to want to change mine," Mary Rose confided to them soberly. "You know I've millions of freckles and my hair's as straight as a string. Nobody ever thinks I'm pretty like Gladys. One day Mrs. Evans told me that pretty is as pretty does and for almost a week I did my best to do pretty, the very prettiest I knew how. But no one ever stopped and said, 'What a beautiful child,' as they do when they see Gladys. Gladys is afraid of dogs and she screams when she sees a mouse. She's even afraid of her tables. So I tried to think I had more real good times by being brave instead of beautiful. Oh!" she broke off with a squeal of delight, for Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary brought in a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of little cakes gay with white and pink frosting. "Oh, Miss Thorley! aren't you glad now that you came?"
CHAPTER XVI
Long before school began Mary Rose had established an acquaintance, if not a friendship, with all the people who lived in the Washington. Not only did she know them herself, but she was the means of many of them knowing others. Mrs. Schuneman and Mrs. Johnson often went to the park together now to feed the squirrels which Mary Rose was firmly convinced the Lord had placed there for those who could not have pets in their homes. Mrs. Matchan had promised to play at one of Mrs. Bracken's club meetings and Mrs. Rawson and her machine were making garments for the children's ward of the new hospital in which Mrs. Willoughby had become interested.
Until Mary Rose came neither Miss Adams nor Mrs. Smith knew that the other was a slave to the crochet hook. Mary Rose arranged an exchange of patterns and when a pineapple border proved too complicated to be worked out alone she brought expert aid and Miss Adams no longer hated the Washington. It was Mary Rose who discovered that old Mr. Jarvis and young Mr. Wilcox were graduates of the same college and that Mr. Blake's grandfather and Mrs. Bracken's grandmother had once sung in the same church choir. Miss Carter and Bob Strahan were often seen strolling together and more than once they had transported Mary Rose to the seventh heaven of delight by taking her to a moving picture show.