The fingers of the hand moved upward, trying to pat the cheek pressed too closely to allow them to do so, but Miss Keren did not speak.
Ralph spoke for her. "Queer, but Happie is like some of those patent medicines—good for what ails you, and for what ails everybody, eh, Bob?"
"Right you are, neighbor mine!" said Bob emphatically.
CHAPTER XII
THE TWO KEREN-HAPPUCHS
Miss Keren said that she "did not know how to be ill." It was owing to this ignorance—which some people might have called pluck—that she did not succumb to the effect of the shock she had undergone.
As it was, she was able to get up every day and sit in the warmest corner of the Patty-Pans parlor, trying not to be any trouble to Happie.
For Happie found her hands full in the month that followed Aunt Keren's arrival. The tea-room saw her no more. If she had allowed herself to think about it she would have been sorry for this. She enjoyed what Bob called for short "The Six Maidens," more and more, got on better with all sorts and conditions of women than Margery did, and had the cheerful conviction that she was, of all the girls, the one most essential to the tea-room's success. But she did not allow herself to recognize her uneasiness in being so long away, for Aunt Keren wanted her, and there was little enough that any of the Scollards could do to show their sense of loving gratitude to Aunt Keren.
Happie was established as housekeeper and attendant, also as amanuensis to their guest, and there were not many minutes in the short February days in which she found time to regret anything. Every morning she saw depart her mother and Bob, together as always, and later Margery, Gretta and Laura, sometimes with one, sometimes with both of the younger children. Then, left alone, Happie flew from one task to another till nightfall brought back the family to an orderly and prepared Patty-Pans and a tired Happie who tried to keep the latter item out of sight.