Mary Rose of Mifflin | Page 5

couldn't weigh seventy. Dear, dear, why couldn't she just as well have been bigger? But after one glance at the glowing little face, Kate Donovan would have lost almost everything rather than her right to take care of diminutive Mary Rose.
Mrs. Black smiled at her. She liked her honest good-natured face. It was a shining door-plate for the big heart behind it. She had been rather worried over Mary Rose's only living relative, for she was fond of Mary Rose and wanted her to have a real home.
"Thank you, but I fear I must go on. Our train was a little late. I am glad to have met you and if you like Mary Rose half as much as I do you will think you are a lucky woman to have her always with you. Good-by, Mary Rose. Thank you for coming with me."
Mary Rose threw her arms about her friend. "Thank you for bringing me," she whispered.
"Have you everything? Her trunk is at the station and she has the check," she explained to Mrs. Donovan. "Good-by." And with another kiss for Mary Rose she was gone. They could hear the purr of the taxicab as it dashed up the street.
Mary Rose drew a deep breath. "It's very pleasant to get to the end of a journey," she began a trifle tremulously. Mary Rose was beginning to feel a bit forlorn at being left alone with an aunt she had never seen before. "Mrs. Black's a very kind lady and she brought me here in a taxicab. It's very pleasant riding in a taxicab."
"I've no doubt it is," remarked Mrs. Donovan, who knew taxicabs only by sight. "Now, Mary Rose, we'll go down to my rooms. Is this your canary?" She looked oddly at the bird-cage.
"Yes, that's Jennie Lind. I couldn't leave her behind and Mrs. Black said you'd be sure to have room for her, for all she needs is a window to hang in and everybody has at least one window. Your house is very large, isn't it?" admiringly. "It makes me think of a palace, although it is something like the new Masonic Temple in Mifflin. Do you live in the cellar?" she asked in astonishment as her aunt led the way down the basement stairs. "I've never lived in a cellar before. In Mifflin our cellar had only room for jellies and pickles and a closet for vegetables, turnips and parsnips, you know."
"This isn't a cellar," she was told rather sharply. "It's a basement."
"Oh!" Mary Rose tried to see the difference between a cellar and a basement and had little difficulty, for nothing could have been more different from the little Mifflin cellar with its swinging shelf for preserves and pickles, its dark closet for vegetables, than Aunt Kate's basement apartment. The sun streamed into the windows, only half of which were below the level of the street, and the rooms looked very bright and pleasant to tired Mary Rose.
"It's--it's very pleasant," she said. "But do you always live down here?" She couldn't understand why her aunt should choose rooms in the cellar when she had such a large house.
Her aunt did not answer her but asked a question of her own. "Mary Rose, what makes you dress like that, like a boy?" She couldn't imagine why.
Mary Rose regarded her small person with a blush and a frown. "I know. Isn't it horrid? I'd lots rather wear girls' clothes, but you see these saved washing, and Lena, who took care of daddy and me, made a fuss about the washing almost every week, so daddy said boys' clothes were pleasanter than arguments. Aunt Kate," her voice was tragic, "I'm 'most eleven years old and I haven't ever had a white dress with a blue sash in all my life. I never even had a hair ribbon!"
"My soul an' body!" murmured Aunt Kate, and derived no more satisfaction from the exclamation than she had the other times she had used it.
"Don't you think boys should wear boys' clothes and girls girls' clothes, Aunt Kate? Of course, if you have to think of the washing, too, I won't say a word and I'll try to be happy in these. But I do hate them. I think little girls' clothes are beautiful. All my life I've wanted a white dress with lace on it and a blue sash. Gladys Evans has one. She wore it at the church social. I spoke a piece and I had to wear these ugly clothes. It hurt my pride awful but daddy said that was because I didn't look at it right, that if I had the right kind of an eye I'd see washing in a white dress instead of beauty. But I guess it's hard to see right when you haven't