Sarah and Shirley crowded around her as she opened it. A little gold "friendship" circle pin, set with a single turquoise, lay on a bed of blue cotton.
"How perfectly lovely!" cried Rosemary. "Is it mine?"
"Of course it is," said Sarah. "Jack and Shirley and I went to Mr. Evans and bought it for you. Do you like it?"
"Why it's darling," the enthusiastic Rosemary assured her. "I never saw a prettier pin. Look, Hugh, look Aunt Trudy," she said eagerly, holding out the pin to them as they came in from the hall.
"Why don't you ask where we got the money to buy it?" suggested Sarah and at that Doctor Hugh shouted with laughter.
"You'll be the death of me yet, Sarah," he protested. "Sit down, people, do, and we'll begin luncheon while Sarah reveals her dark secret."
"'Tisn't a secret," announced Sarah with dignity. "Hugh said we might take the ring-fund money, Rosemary, and buy you something nice with it, and if we saw anything we thought you'd like, to tell him, and he'd give us as much more money as we needed. Then Aunt Trudy said she wanted to put some money with the ring-fund money, and so did Winnie and so did Jack, so everybody did. Oh, yes, Hugh did, too. And we saw this pin and Shirley and I thought it would be nice because it had the turquoise in it like Aunt Trudy's ring, and Jack said it was a 'friendship circle' and that meant we were all friends of yours. So we bought it and it was seven dollars and a half," concluded Sarah who was nothing if not thorough.
"It's just beautiful," said Rosemary, with an April face of smiles and tears. "I'll always keep it and love you all for thinking so much of me."
She had wondered several times about the ring money, but the doctor had made no motion to give her back the bank. Neither had he mentioned returning the money again. Rosemary supposed that he would bring the subject up some time, but until he did she was content to forget about it. She did not know till weeks afterward that it was Jack Welles who had dissuaded the doctor from his plan to have the "fund" returned to those who had paid it.
"Rosemary earned the money fairly and squarely," he argued. "She earned it by the hardest kind of work and it seems mean to make her feel cheap. Those women were paying for service and they got it, and they don't think any the less of Rosemary, either, if Aunt Trudy does moan along about 'degrading' the family. You're forever preaching that there is no disgrace in any kind of honest work, Hugh—"