Gretta's heart thrilled as she listened to her friend pouring out her words more rapidly than her cousins had ever heard any one speak, but clearly, and with a dignity that struck precisely the right note of outraged honor and of self-restraint.
Eunice turned away her eyes from the girl's glowing ones; she felt the force of Happie's justice and her own meanness.
"I don't see what you're going to do about it whatever I say, and I hain't goin' to leave no one tell me what to talk about," she muttered. "I don't care what Gretta does. We took her because we had to, and she hain't never been grateful to us. If she wants to hang around you I won't stop her, but she can't let her work undone. Gretta, when are you goin' down cellar after them potatoes?"
"Now, Eunice," said Gretta. There was a new note in her quiet voice, and she immediately turned to Happie. "I've got to help with dinner now, Happie, and I may be busy a while after that, but I'll come over this afternoon to your house."
Reba looked up quickly from the cheese which she was straining through a cloth. "Yes, you go, Gretta," she said, and Happie went away wondering.
She was not sufficiently versed in human nature to know that Gretta's sudden accession of decision had come from two things. First, she was emboldened by Happie's encounter with her cousin, but still more was she forgetting herself, her dread of visiting, in the desire to prove to her champion that she held to her faith in her unshaken, and that she wished with all her loyal heart to make up to Happie for her cousin's hatefulness. In her desire to show her confidence in her friend and her gratitude to her, at last the fear of that vague "rest" of the Scollards had been lost.
Happie reached home so excited by her adventure with Eunice that she did not rush out to see the new horse as she had planned doing. Instead she regaled her family with the story, almost forgetting to eat, she talked so fast.
"Well, dear; I hope you weren't impertinent, but from what you tell me I think you weren't," said her mother, when the long tale was finished. "For Gretta's sake as well as your own you were obliged to vindicate yourself from the charge of insincerity. And more years do not warrant imputations on another's honor."
Rosie Gruber, taking part as usual in the family councils, here interposed. "Of course she wasn't saucy; Happie's never saucy. The idea of telling her to her face she was two-faced yet! You send them Neumanns to me! I'll tell 'em how you're always talking about Gretta and planning to help her! Two-faced, you! That's a good hint you give her about grudging Gretta friends; you hit her there, and she knew it. There never was such a jealous-hearted woman as Eunice Neumann. She hates to see any one havin' a good time. When Reba was young she had a beau—Eunice never did; there wa'n't a man in the township would have darst to keep comp'ny with Eunice, but Reba had a beau. And if that woman—girl she was then, but just the same's now at heart—if she didn't hint round and fuss round till she got him to stop goin' with her sister, then my name isn't Rosie Heimgegen, Rosie Gruber now! Reba'd be different if she lived somewheres else. Eunice nags and nags till Reba gits to snappin' back—there hain't many things so ketchin' as snappin'. Eunice grudges Gretta her board and keep, though she earns it good. She's mad to think Gretta's happier this summer. There is folks like that, all sour and clabbered like schmier-case——My days! That puts me in mind! I went off and let that pot too far front on the fire! I wanted to hurry it a while, but I guess it's hurried too much." And good Rosie rushed out to the rescue of her schmier-case, to which she was trying to convert the family, hurried so fast that Jeunesse Dorée fled to the windowsill for safety, a puff of nervousness.
Miss Bradbury looked at her namesake sternly, but there was a belying twinkle in her eye. "What do you mean by embroiling me with my neighbors, Keren-happuch?" she demanded.