"A horse? From the city? What good does she expect a city horse to be on these mountains?" demanded Eunice. "She'd better bought one up here, and saved the express on him yet!"
"Oh, I think this horse was sent into the country for his health," laughed Happie. "You will let Gretta come over, won't you?"
"How do you make out with Rosie Gruber?" inquired Eunice. "She's got such a temper, folks say, Mahlon can't stay home. She hain't clean; not what we call clean."
"Why, Miss Neumann!" cried Happie, shocked into undiplomatic defense of Rosie. "She hasn't a bad temper; she's only a little, wee bit snappish, and as to Mahlon, if it wasn't for Rosie he wouldn't have a home to stay in—but of course you know that even better than I do! And she's the cleanest woman! She's made our tumble-down old house as clean as wax. Rosie's a treasure."
"That house you seem to think so poor of hadn't ought to be yours anyhow," said the agreeable Eunice. "Old Bittenbender hadn't any right to give it over to your folks. There's cheatin' somewheres, but we couldn't never prove nothin'. 'Twan't his to give; we're certain of that. It ought to belong to Gretta here, and if she had it she could rent it out, or maybe take a couple of summer boarders after a year, or a couple of years more, instead of bein' a cost to us who need all we kin make for ourselves! Gretta, you git off that there bonnet and git up the potatoes. What you standin' round fer? Hain't there always work to do, I'd like to know?"
Gretta did not answer. She hung up her sunbonnet with quiet obedience, and took the tin basin in which to fetch potatoes. She seemed to recognize at once the uselessness of further pleas for her visit.
But Happie, seeing the clouding of the dark eyes and the look of shame on the pretty face of her new friend, cried out: "Oh, Miss Neumann, Gretta wouldn't be gone long! Won't you please, please let her come home with me? She hasn't been once! Are—you are going to let her come, aren't you?"
"Well, I guess she hain't goin' visitin' before dinner!" said Eunice. "She'd better not go no time. I tell her she'll find out what she'll git, makin' friends with a city girl like you, that'll git tired of her 'soon's you've got used to her, and then where'll she be, with her head all filled up with foolish notions, and tryin' to talk fine, like you yet? I've got my eyes open; I see just what you're doin' with Gretta. She'd better stick to her own folks, that's what she'd better! She come into the world to work, and she's got to work all her life. You won't do her no good, makin' her discontented and then leavin' her. I've been warnin' her, but she's like all girls—thinks she knows more'n older folks! I'm glad I've got the chanct to tell you to your face you'd better leave Gretta stay where you found her. I bet you laugh at her now when you git home with the rest!"
Happie's eyes blazed. She took a step towards Eunice, drawing herself up to the woman's height in her righteous indignation. Gretta quailed, even while she rejoiced that this time Eunice had met one who did not fear her.
"Miss Neumann," said Happie, trying to speak quietly, remembering that this woman was much her elder, and the imprudence of angering her further, for Gretta's sake. "Miss Neumann, I can't allow you to accuse me of being double-faced. When I say I admire and like Gretta I mean it, and when I speak of her, I speak as I do to her. If I were so treacherous, so mean as to pretend to be her friend and then went home and laughed at her I should be severely punished; my mother would have no mercy on a hypocrite. But why should I laugh at Gretta? She is pretty, gentle, refined, good, and patient as I never could be. I like her very much, and she knows I do. I'm not going to drop her, and I won't forget her. I wish you would not try to teach her to mistrust me; it's not fair. And even if she did come into the world to work—I suppose she did, because everybody has to work, one way or another—she came into it for lots else, and I mean to help her find the rest. It almost seems as if you grudged her love and pleasure. Of course you don't, because you couldn't, but it almost seems so. Anyway you will please never speak of me again as you did just now, because I can't possibly be called double-faced."