She stood and looked about her bewildered. It wasn't possible that anyone, even the owner of the Washington, would take her Uncle Larry's work from him just because a little girl was living with him? Aunt Kate must be mistaken or perhaps she had misunderstood. She often found herself mistaken in her ideas of what grown people meant. She tried to think she was now as she took the globe and carried it carefully into the dining-room and placed it on the table where the sunlight fell on the fish and polished their golden scales.
"That's what I call a han'some present," admired Uncle Larry in the same hearty voice Mary Rose usually heard from him.
She looked up quickly. He wouldn't speak like that if he were going to lose his work. She hadn't understood. That was it. Children often didn't understand grown people.
"They are beautiful," she said softly. "I wasn't very welcoming to them at first because I was afraid Mr. Jerry meant them to take the place of darling Jenny Lind and nothing can do that—fish nor dogs nor cats nor squirrels nor anything. But when I watched them swim I found they could have a place of their very own and so I'm very glad now to have them."
"Of course you are. But eat your breakfas', child, or Mr. Jerry'll be callin' for you before you're ready."
That was a wonderful Sunday to Mary Rose. She sat on the front seat beside Mr. Jerry and as neither of them felt much like talking they enjoyed the silence. Mile after mile was left behind them and when they began to pass through small towns and villages Mary Rose sat up straighter.
"They're like Mifflin, only different," she murmured vaguely.
When they came to a little white meetinghouse standing all by itself near the road Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary asked him to stop and let them go to church.
"It seems as if it would be rather pleasant to go to a simple service such as they must have here," she suggested.
"I'll put it to a vote," Mr. Jerry offered obligingly. "Mary Rose, what do you say?"