Gretta beamed at this hearing. She longed for her mountains more and more as the warmth of spring increased.
The Gordons went back to their own domain, Ralph with a face so gloomy that it was hard to recognize him whose liveliness failed then for the first time.
Bob closed the door behind them and came back with a thoughtful look. "Aunt Keren," he said, "I can't go to the Ark with the rest. I am a year older, and I can't leave Mr. Felton as I did last year and expect to get back in the fall. You know I'd like to spend the summer up there, but how can I? I think I'll ask Mrs. Gordon to take me in with her boys, and you'll let me come up Fridays, or Saturdays if I can't do better?"
"Oh, Bob!" exclaimed Gretta involuntarily, with such profound disappointment in her voice that they all laughed, and she colored furiously.
"I've got to be a man, Gretta," said Bob. "Time's up in which I can be merely a thing of beauty."
"And for me, too, Bobby boy!" cried his mother. "Isn't it strange that I did not remember my responsibilities until just now! I can't go off rusticating this summer as I did last year when I was an invalid, Miss Keren. Bob and I will board—no, we will stay in the Patty-Pans, and visit you and the children in the Ark for nice Englishlike 'week ends' every week!"
"Charlotte, dear, listen. You have a new position. You are no longer to be foreign correspondent to your down-town firm, but Housekeeper Plenipotentiary to Her Crotchety Highness, the Princess Keren-happuch. And a sorry time you will probably have of it!" said Miss Keren with emphasis. "To-morrow I am going to get you to meet me with Happie at my lawyer's and we are going to execute certain documents that will give Happie a legal claim on me."
"Shall I take your name, Auntie Keren?" inquired Happie.
"You are to add Bradbury, but not substitute it for Scollard," said Miss Keren.
"And not with another hyphen, please?" implored Happie. "Not Keren-happuch Bradbury-Scollard! Because my signature would look like those paper dolls cut in strings from folded paper—those that all hold hands, you know. I don't need a legal claim on you, auntie dear. I'll claim you illegally just as irresistibly."