"I forgot all I'd planned to say! Susy looked so cold, Mrs. Lynch. I hated my nice warm clothes."
"Oh, Susy was warm enough. She's a bright child, she is. When she's a bit older things will ease up."
Robin remembered what Beryl had said of the girls in Wassumsic having nothing else to do but go into the Mills. Susy would grow older and take Sarah's place. But what if she didn't want to? What happened to the "big girls" who didn't want to go into the Mills? Robin could hear Beryl's contemptuous: "Why they haven't a chance in the world." Well, anyway, someone could make the Mills so nice that the girls would want to work in them. "I wish I were big!" cried Robin with such passion that Mrs. Lynch, not knowing her train of thought, had a sudden qualm at taking a sensitive little thing like Miss Robin to poor old Granny Castle's.
"Now, dearie, don't you worry. Things come out somehow—in the next world maybe for the Granny Castles, but they do. Now that idea of yours of fixing that cottage—"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you! My guardian says I may. At least he said that if I wanted a club, to help myself, and that must mean he consents. He's a dear. Have you time to go there with me now and just peek into it? I'm sure we can get in."
"I'll take the time," cried Mrs. Moira with an interest as eager as Robin's. "I'll just drop in and tell my Danny when we go past—it's so lonesome he gets when I'm slow coming."
Robin's House of Laughter looked a little deserted standing alone in the shadow of the hillside, gaunt branches creaking over its low roof, the ends of the trailing vines whipping restlessly against the gray clapboards. But Robin and Mrs. Lynch saw it as they wanted it to be—neatly painted, its windows curtained, its yard trimmed, its doorstep dignified by a broad inviting step, and flanked by a trellis for the rambling rose vine. The door opened for them in the most promising way and they tiptoed into a big bare room with two windows at one end looking out over the hills and river.
"Isn't this nice?" cried Robin in delighted staccato. "It's just made for what we want. Look—a fireplace!" To be sure, it was nothing more than a gap in the wall. "And these darling windows. We can put a seat way across, all comfy." She promptly saw, in her mind, Susy curled upon it with a beautiful picture book and a handful of cookies. "Oh, let's see the rest. Look, a cunning kitchen. The children can play cooking. And this room—what can we use this room for?"
Mrs. Lynch was thinking rapidly. Because of her experience with Miss Lewis she saw possibilities way beyond Robin's eager planning—class rooms where the older girls could learn other trades—a domestic science class in the kitchen for the mothers—a sewing room, a library full of instructive and entertaining books, and the big living room where the children could gather after school hours, and the men and women and big boys and girls in the evening. And a playground outside—and gardens.
"Can't we fix it up right away?" Robin's eager questioning brought her sharply out of her dream to a practical realization that all the House of Laughter had as endowment was an unselfish girl's enthusiasm.