"Do hear the man of business!" cried Miss Keren. "I carried a good insurance, Bob, but money can never compensate me for what is gone. The dear inanimate friends of my lifetime, that seemed so animated with good will to me, and with which I had been so long glad and sorry! My chairs, my couches, and above all my pictures, my books. Most of my household goods were handed down to me by those who consecrated them to me—ah, no, money does not do anything for one in such a case except buy merely useful articles to replace the others; it gives one things with bodies only, where the old ones had heart and soul! I am quite ashamed to mind so much, I who am old enough to understand that transitory things cannot long affect me."
No one spoke. Happie stroked Miss Keren's hand, bundled up at her feet, a figure of tearful and loving sympathy. Bob, Ralph and Snigs avoided one another's eyes; each knew what he should see if he looked at the other two.
"You asked what caused the fire, Charlotte," said Miss Keren, breaking the silence. "A tenant on a lower floor—the one below mine—was washing gloves in gasoline in her bath-room. The gas was lighted, but the door was open, so there was no danger. However, some one called her, and when she went out of the bath-room she closed the door behind her. The fumes of the gasoline ignited from the gas in the heated, close little room—and the whole house went. Such a pity! I liked the house; it was more distinctive than newer apartments."
"Words cannot say how sorry I am, dear Miss Keren," said Mrs. Scollard. "But I am sure you know how we all feel. It has been; there is no curing it, and we must do our best to help you in enduring it. I am so glad that you came straight here! It is a greater happiness to me than you can gauge, to know that my mother's beloved friend comes to me as if I were her daughter."
"Yes, Charlotte, you are my nearest of kin, although I have blood relatives," said Miss Keren. "Happie, stop crying. Tears won't put out a fire that has done its work, my dear. And I shall have to go to the hotel after all if you prove an Unhappie. Don't you know that after a nervous shock the patient must be cheered?"
"Yes, and I think we'll have a jolly time, between the Patty-Pans and the Next Flat!" cried Ralph, speaking for the first time since Miss Keren arrived. "Now Snigs and I can try to show you how gratefully we remember the good times we had, thanks to you, up in Crestville last summer! We'll entertain you till you won't know there ever was a fire, and you'll lose your grippe! And, see here, Mrs. Scollard, please ma'am! Bob is coming over to sleep in our camp. You know how much room we have, our flat being the same size as this one, and our family three, instead of eight. So let Bob sleep over there, and Miss Bradbury can take his room and we'll all be as merry as a marriage bell. I wonder why people say that? Every wedding I ever saw was the dreariest thing I ever struck."
"Thank you, Ralph," smiled Mrs. Scollard. "I will accept that offer on the spot. Come now, girls, let us begin to get dinner. We were going to have a particularly nice dinner, Miss Keren, so you came on precisely the right day. Come, Margery and Gretta! And Happie, you may attend to the dining-room."
"Let Laura look after the dining room, Charlotte. I want Happie. I am not sure that I feel quite well," said Miss Keren unexpectedly.
Happie flushed with pleasure, and forgot her grief over Auntie Keren's losses in the joy of knowing that she was a comfort, knowledge that is a keen joy to almost any one, but was especially so to loving Happie.
"Oh, I am so glad that you like to have me by you!" she said, laying her cheek on Miss Keren's hand.