"Let me see, Laura!" cried Happie, crowding up. "It isn't, Edith. It's alike. It's the left side that is different!"
"Happie, you are such a delicious idiot!" sighed Edith with the most sincerely complimentary intentions. "There isn't one of the girls says the lovely nonsense foolish things you do. That's why we can't get along without you all summer! Do you know what? I've got mamma to promise to go up to one of the hotels--you're to select it--in your mountains, for awhile this year. We'd like to see Crestville, the Ark and our Happiness this summer."
"Hurrah!" remarked Happie. "We are worth seeing, all three of us. Gretta and I will drive up to call on you in state at the big hotel, and when you return the call you shall come down and play in our barn and ride on our hay wagon in no state at all."
"Hurrah!" echoed Edith. "That sounds fine. Now we must go home. Oh, there are the boys; that nice, independent, kind-hearted Ralph Gordon, your Bob--and Margery's Robert! Is my hat on straight, Eleanor? And am I mashing my bows with my hat pins?"
"No, only trying to," remarked Elsie with a glance that pointed her remark. Elsie did not disdain slang nor a pun.
"Gretta, there is a package mother sent you. She said that you were not to think she considered it in any sense payment for what you did for me last winter. But she did want to give you some remembrance, since you wouldn't go to school."
Gretta almost laughed. "That would have been a reminder!" she said as she took the small square package. She opened it while the others were diverted by the arrival of the boys. It was a dark green leather case, in which rested a beautiful tiny watch. The watch was held by a pin, its design the seal of the State of Pennsylvania, dark blue and green enamel on a gold ground. A card lay on the satin cushion of the box. On it was written: "To Miss Angela Key-Stone, from Elsie Barker and her grateful mother."
Gretta closed the box. Bob looked at her, wondering at the pleasure in her face and thinking, as he thought of late more often than ever: "My, but Gretta's a beauty!"
He said aloud: "We four came to take you girls home from the ex-tea room for the last time. Nice little place, we're sorry to say good-bye!"