"Rosemary, too?" asked Shirley, balancing like a butterfly on the top step.
"Rosemary, too."
Forgetting her aching bump, Sarah followed Shirley into the house with a shout, and the sound of their feet clattering up the open stairway proclaimed their intentions of not wasting a minute.
"Here comes Mrs. Hildreth," said Rosemary in a low voice. "I wish I could fix her just once—she doesn't know how to be pretty."
Rosemary, with uncanny penetration, had hit upon the truth. Mrs. Hildreth did not know how to be pretty. She would have said she had not the time to "fuss with her looks," but it would have taken little extra time to have done her really abundant hair in a becoming style instead of the tight knot into which she invariably twisted it. And surely, if she could don that clean, starched dark calico dress in five minutes, it would have taken no longer to put on a pretty light-colored frock.
"I thought your brother would be out to spend Sunday," said Mrs. Hildreth capably, in her high-pitched, nervous voice, "so I brought up two extra bunches of asparagus. Winnie told me the doctor liked it."
"Winnie has my likes and dislikes down pat," declared Doctor Hugh, rising and shaking hands. "Will you come in, Mrs. Hildreth? My mother will be down in a minute."
Rosemary took the asparagus and seconded the invitation.
"No, thanks, I can't stay," said Mrs. Hildreth, rather regretfully. "I have to tend to the chickens and get the milk pans and strainers ready and do a lot of little chores before I get supper. You use your porch a lot, don't you?"
"Yes," said Rosemary who, she had once told her mother, always felt as though Mrs. Hildreth's sharp eyes condemned her as lazy. "We all love to be out of doors."