"Happie is trying to tell you about something we have talked over of late—it was her idea in the first place," said Margery. "We thought that we might—No; that isn't the beginning either! We thought that we must earn money somehow. And we never were able to think of anything that we could do; we are all so very young. And mother would be miserable if we so much as suggested anything that was—well, public, or which threw us in with people or things that weren't very nice indeed. And Happie said: A tea room! And it really does seem to be the very thing, only we couldn't see, much as we wanted to, how it would bring in a great deal of money after we had paid rent and all the other expenses. Even though we meant to add a circulating library to it."
"What does the tea room mean, precisely?" asked Miss Bradbury.
"It means some dark, rich paper—probably red—on the walls, and lots of little tables all around, and the sweetest little Japanese teapots—the kind you get at Mardine's for fifteen or twenty cents on the bargain tables—and dainty teacups, and sugar and cream jugs, and little plates of thin wafers and crackers and sweet cakes, and maybe sardines, because you have to have lemons anyway, for people that take it in their tea; and I say lettuce for sandwiches in the season when it's not too expensive, and, well, 'most anything dainty and good, such as you would get at a tea. And lanterns all around, and the windows darkened with pretty warm, dark Japanesey curtains, so you could have the lanterns lighted all the time. And Laura wants incense sticks, but I don't, because if any one burned those things where I was eating, I shouldn't be eating long. And then book shelves, and new novels in them, and let people help themselves, and charge ten cents a week, three books at a time twenty-five cents—oh, a regular duck of a place!" said Happie in a breath, forestalling Margery.
"A regular poll parrot of a place, I should say, if you are going in for ornithological comparisons, Happie," protested Miss Bradbury. "How you do run on! I don't think I understand. Are you intending to rent a room, and furnish and carry it on in the way you describe—or rather in the way you sketchily outline?"
"We wanted to do it, Aunt Keren," Margery answered for her sister. "But we didn't see any chance of getting enough out of it to warrant trying it. Now, if mother were going to be sure of thirteen hundred a year—if she is strong enough to take half her old work—and Bob went to Mr. Felton at five dollars a week, then I think we girls could make up the rest that we need for expenses. Gretta, we thought, would come down with us for the winter, anyway, and help us in the tea room."
"I am better able to go to the office every day than I am to feel troubled," said Mrs. Scollard truly. "And really I am almost perfectly well again; the Ark and this mountain air have saved me. I certainly shall accept this offer."
"And I will back the girls in this plan to be useful which they have concocted," said Miss Bradbury. "It is really not a bad plan, and perfectly feasible. And being their own plot it would be far better to help them to carry it out, than to offer them a substitute for it. I'll tell you what I will do, Margery and Happie! I will make myself responsible for the rent of your tea room, and you may repay me if I have to meet it, and that will leave the success wholly yours, if success it is to be. After the two first months it will have been tested sufficiently for us to judge."
"Aunt Keren, you are the very best namesake—named-after-sake—a girl could possibly have!" cried Happie in a rapture. "You don't know how we longed and burned to try this scheme, but we didn't see how we could do it without capital enough to pay the rent until we were on our feet. And now you say this! Bless you, bless you!" And Happie seized her financial sponsor, and name donor, around the neck in a hug that set the dignified Miss Bradbury awry in collar, tie, and hair combs.
Miss Bradbury adjusted these accessories with a protesting exclamation that her face belied. She was not only getting used to Happie's irruptiveness, but liking it. "Now I'll tell you something further," she said. "In going about among various degrees and kinds of poor people in New York, I often come upon some one who has a room to rent or a lease to get rid of—sometimes a whole house. In the spring, in the late winter, more correctly, I knew of a dear little, quiet widow who had undertaken more than she could carry on in the matter of rent. She had found a pretty shop, with two rooms above it which she had taken for her dancing school. When I last heard of her she wanted to keep only the two rooms above stairs for the school, and to rent the shop. If she should happen to be offering her place still—she wouldn't rent it except to the right tenants—it would be the very thing for you, a pretty room, precisely the right size, with large windows, and directly on the way to everywhere. More than that Mrs. Stewart would be there to look after you, and make your undertaking safe from any doubtful or unpleasant features—she would chaperon you children. Charlotte, we could not let them open their tea-library combination without an older person to take care of them, could we?"
"No, indeed; but you are all talking and planning so fast that I can't follow you. It is perfectly safe to say I agree with that last statement, but I'm not sure I agree to anything else," said Mrs. Scollard, looking as excited as her children, and far more bewildered.