Happie looked up and out of the packing-case which for the moment swallowed her. Her laugh was so contagious that Aunt Keren came into the room laughing, and Margery ran in ready to join the fun.
"Only see, Auntie Keren and Margery, what Laura wants to take with her for a steamer rug!" cried Happie. "That dreadful, worn floor rug—Smyrna at that!"
"You funny little Exportation!" smiled Miss Keren. "That would hardly do. You won't need a chair and a rug, for you won't sit mummified on the voyage. Be satisfied with your delightful new flat trunk, that is the only steamer appurtenance you need. Are you going down to close the tea room this afternoon, girls?"
"Yes, Aunt Keren. The three E's are coming in, and the expressman is coming after our boxes. We are to send them right to the new house, aren't we?" Happie arose, dusting fragments of pine from her knees as she spoke.
"Yes, except the books that you are giving to the hospital; better send them direct," replied Miss Keren. "I am going there now. I'll stay till the boxes arrive. Don't you think you ought to be getting started?"
"Immejit, ma'am!" said Happie. She was such a happy Happie these eventful and promising days that she could not talk sober sense.
Margery was ready that moment, so Happie and Gretta and Laura hurried on their hats and took Polly and Penny down to superintend shipping away the furnishings of the tea room, and to witness the ceremony of finally locking the door.
It was already a denuded tea room, the melancholy wreck of its pretty self. It had been a successful room, and more than an important one. The girls looked around its walls and stripped book-shelves, and wondered if any other venture could have to its credit in such a speedy closing so many vitally important results as this one showed. The reuniting of the von Siegeslieds, Laura's consequent good fortune, the endowment of Ralph for college—these good things were the direct consequence of the "Tea Room and Circulating Library Conducted by Six Girls."
Margery took the card bearing this legend from its hooks with a reminiscent smile, half pensive, yet wholly glad. Gentle Margery bore a thankful and a happy heart in these days. Not quite six months had passed since the Scollards had come back to town, and this half year had been teeming with good fortune for them all, but it had brought to Margery—Robert.
A step outside made her look up just as she was creeping out of the deep window in which their announcement card had hung. An old lady, very small and somewhat bent, clad in deep mourning, was entering. She was so unlike her old self that for an instant Margery did not recognize in her Mrs. Jones-Dexter.