Rosie surveyed Happie with high approval; of all the young Scollards, Happie was her favorite.
"Gretta's the prettiest and brightest girl in Crestville," she declared. "But she's awful shy. If you've got her to talk to you, you've done wonders. And if you make her friends with you, you'll be doin' the best thing you've ever done in your short life. If you was to know the whole of Gretta's story, you'd think she'd had pretty hard luck. I'm glad you hain't one of the sort of folks that can't see through a faded dress, nor yet under a sunbonnet, Happie."
"If she's got Happie to take her up, she's had one piece of good luck," said Bob, who never hesitated to show publicly his appreciation of his sister. "Happie makes every one else happy—that's a well-wearing, well-worn family joke, Ralph—and she's not the sort to let them slip back again into unhappiness because she gets tired of her bargain, are you, Hapsie? Are you going to adopt your beauty?"
Margery, Laura and their mother laughed. The family had never exhausted the fun of the story of Happie's adoption of a colored girl of twelve when the young woman herself was at the suitable age of four. She had insisted on bringing big Cora Jackson home with her, and on opening her bank to take out her pennies to buy ice cream for her sustenance. She had been much grieved when her protégée had been found to have decamped, taking with her her little protector's gold shoulder pins, as well as Margery's new parasol.
Happie now joined in the laugh, but gave her decided little hitch of the chin.
"And if I did," she said, "it wouldn't be a bad plan. At least I wouldn't scold her all day and every day, as her cross old cousins do. And there's a great difference between the Cora Jackson of my childhood, and this pretty Gretta of my old age! You wait till you see her, Bob! She's far prettier than Allie Herford." Which was a home thrust, for Bob considered Allie Herford the prettiest girl of his acquaintance.
Ralph looked up quizzically. "Don't you mind 'em, Happie," he said. "I believe in your four-leaf-clover-of-the-fields, and that you will find her good luck. Besides, you must not let your young mind get embittered by these cynics. 'It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.' So it's better to invest your trust, even though your bubbles—bust. Pardon the inelegance, Laura; I did not realize that 'burst' only rhymed with 'trust' when it was 'bust,' until I was too far embarked on my poem to tack—to carry on my metaphor with an unmixedness that I hope you appreciate. Never mind if your Gretta deceives you!"
"I never knew any other boy so imbued with the poets!" said Margery in mock admiration of Ralph's outburst.
But Rosie, flying in and out with steaming dishes, was impressed only by the matter, not the manner of his remarks.
"Don't you talk silly, Ralph Gordon," she said spiritedly. "Gretta Engel never will deceive nobody. She will do Happie good too, and she's made a good bargain yet. Your meat's fried most too much. Set up and eat awhile before it gits cold."