A couple of days later Mr. Breen approached the subject of the new wall-paper. He merely _approached_ it, because at the first mention Lucy fairly flung herself on it and appropriated it. The very thing, she decided. She thought that room was about as shabby as it could be. Could she select the paper? Of course she could! She knew exactly what mamma would like.
At her use of the word mamma, Mr. Breen"s heart leaped. He had been a patient, but very unhappy man, and the thought that his little household might become united was the greatest happiness he could imagine. So he grumbled out that he was glad of that, because he never could tell the _least_ thing about the silly strips of paper they showed in the stores, and Lucy could go ahead and get whatever she wanted.
But the following morning, when a van backed up to the door and a couple of men commenced to take away all the prettiest wicker furniture in the house he demanded some explanation.
"Why, they have to be painted for mamma"s new room," said the practical Miss Breen. "You said I could go ahead, and I have gone!"
"All our furniture has gone too, I should say," said Mr. Breen.
"Just the best of the wicker," answered Lucy. "I thought and thought all last night, and I have decided just what would be the _loveliest_ thing in the world for her, with her violet blue eyes and golden hair. So when you were shaving I telephoned for the men to come and take the chairs and tables and that chaise-longue and they are all going to be painted.
"And today you had better write her that you think it would be a good thing, as long as she is there, to stay another week. Don"t let her suspect, but _don"t_ let her come home."
"Very well," said Mr. Breen with a twinkle in his eye, but outwardly very meek. "Just as you say. Send the bills to me."
"Oh, I was going to," said Lucy with the happiest laugh he had heard from her for months.
Mr. Breen did not come home for luncheon, and every day Lucy managed to have Elise or Rosanna or Helen take that meal with her.
Lucy worked like mad and nearly wore the workmen out, she hurried them so. Mrs. Breen decided to make a longer stay, but even then there was but little time, because Lucy had decided that all the woodwork must be re-enameled. When that was done and the paper on, she cast aside the old rug with scorn, and took the three girls downtown to buy others. As the days went on, Lucy found that her point of view was wholly changed. She was so intent on the beautiful surprise she was planning that it seemed to sweep her mind clean of all the dark and unworthy feelings that had filled it. She even wrote to Mrs. Breen at a suggestion from Elise, a pleasant friendly letter, ending, "With love, Lucy."
And to her surprise Mrs. Breen answered the letter at once, with a long one all about her visit, and enclosing funny little cartoons of each one of the family, including the boy who had spoken his mind to Lucy.
Strange to say, Lucy was able to acknowledge the truth of the young man"s remark.
"Some day," said Lucy to herself, "if this turns out all right, I will tell him that he was _perfectly right_."
Lucy was coming to think, with a sense of deep chagrin, that she herself had been the one in the wrong. And being an honest girl and wanting very humbly and deeply to live up to the pledge of the Girl Scouts, she was growing most anxious to make good her faults.
So she drove the painters and paperhangers and upholsterers almost wild, and had the happiness of seeing the beautiful room all settled and in order two days before Mrs. Breen was expected. It had a hard time staying settled however, because Lucy spent all her time after school trying things in new places to see if they looked any better. Her father vowed that he would go up and nail the things down, but he was just as proud and pleased as Lucy.
With all the planning and plotting, and various jaunts to the shops together, and to some movies and once to the theatre, Lucy and her father had entered a new epoch in their lives. They too seemed to have forgotten the past.
As Elise said, they found that they could make a beginning anywhere. And once begun, they found that it was like a door that had opened into a beautiful place full of happiness and sunshine--a door that closed softly behind them and shut out all the despair and gloom on the other side.
When the day came for Mrs. Breen"s return, Mr. Breen insisted on Lucy coming to meet her, and Lucy, in whom some of the old dread seemed struggling to awake, went silently. But when she was suddenly caught in a warm embrace, before even her father was greeted, and when a sweet voice said, "Oh, what a _long_ two weeks it has been, Lucy! _Do_ say you have missed me!" Lucy felt that all was indeed well with her world.
Mrs. Breen had brought another brother with her: a shy, awkward boy, evidently frightened to death of Lucy, a fact which of course set her completely at her ease. They drove home, and Lucy and her father dogged Mrs. Breen"s footsteps up the stairs when she said she would go and take off her things. Not for worlds would they have missed seeing her first look at the newly decorated room. And it was worth all the trouble to witness her delight and appreciation.
So Happiness and Love and Understanding came into the Breen home. Lucy wore her trefoil with a new grat.i.tude and a new understanding. Elise felt a happiness that she had thought she could never feel, for she had helped a sister Scout through a dark and dreadful place in her life.
Mrs. Breen was so happy that she sang and sang all the day long, and when one day a baby boy set up a l.u.s.ty roar in the beautiful room that Lucy had made, it was Lucy who named him, and Lucy who a.s.sumed such airs of superiority in speaking of "my baby brother" that the girls grew to avoid the subject of children in general as it was sure to bring from Lucy some anecdote to prove the vast superiority and beauty of the Breen baby.
Rosanna was happy too. Uncle Robert had been away longer than Rosanna liked. She was surprised to find how much she missed Uncle Robert. And much as she loved him, and wanted him to be happy, she decided that it was really a good thing that he did _not_ care for girls. The various uncles who did like girls she noticed had a way of marrying one of them and leaving home for good. That was a poor plan, thought Rosanna, as she felt the silence in the big old house. No number of girls could make the whistly noises Uncle Robert could when he ran upstairs three steps at a time or dashed down again. No one but Uncle Robert could tootle so entrancingly on the flute, or pick out such funny records for the Victrola. No one in the world would think to bring one a box of candy and leave it hidden in his hat, or just outside the door for one to find after dinner. No other Uncle would remember a little girl"s birthday once a month with a new dollar bill.
Rosanna, driven by a real loneliness to confide in someone, spent much time with Miss Hooker and while Rosanna honestly thought she was attending strictly to Scout business, the conversation was sure to slip around to Uncle Robert. Miss Hooker never appeared to join Rosanna in her talk, but it was surprising what a good listener she proved to be.
The only time she said anything was when Rosanna would enlarge on the way Uncle Robert felt about girls. Then Miss Hooker would always a.s.sert that she thought he was perfectly right, because she herself thought very little of men. Silly creatures she said they were, at which loyal Rosanna would always declare, "But Uncle Robert isn"t."
Miss Hooker would answer, "_Possibly_ not," in a manner that insinuated that perhaps he wasn"t, and perhaps he _was_, but Rosanna let it go.
However, Rosanna was happy because Uncle Robert had written her that he was coming home in a day or two, and that she might get ready to look in the left hand pocket of his overcoat, and whatever was there she could have. When she told Miss Hooker she was grieved to hear her say that she was not sure that she would be around to see the surprise, because she was planning to go away herself, and wasn"t it too bad?
"I should say it was!" said Rosanna. "Why, then you won"t see Uncle Robert either!"
"No," said Miss Hooker, "but it really doesn"t make any difference. I don"t suppose I am any more anxious to see him than he is to see me."
When Uncle Robert appeared and came up the front steps three at a time as usual, Rosanna was at the door to meet him. She jumped into his arms and hugged him until he begged for mercy.
As she let him go, she happened to think of the left hand pocket, and had to think which was the left. While she was deciding, she heard a funny noise, and there in the pocket was a fuzzy head. The most adorable little head! It was a tiny baby collie, looking like a small bear.
Rosanna had him out in a second, and Uncle Robert left her with her new pet while he went to speak to his mother.
That night he came up to show Rosanna how to put her puppy to bed for the night, and when the little fellow at last snuggled down in his basket, and went to sleep, Uncle Robert settled down in his favorite chair and lighted a cigarette and wanted to hear all the news.
"What shall I start with?" asked Rosanna, listening to the soft breathing of the little collie.
"Oh, it doesn"t matter," said Uncle Robert. "Begin with Miss--er Gwenny."
"Why, you needn"t call her _Miss_," said Rosanna. "You never used to! I thought first you were going to say begin with Miss Hooker."
"Ridiculous!" laughed Uncle Robert, c.o.c.king his eye up at the ceiling.
"Begin with Gwenny, of course."
"Well," said Rosanna, "we have only had two letters from her mother. One was soon after you went away, and said that Gwenny was very comfortable indeed, and had a fine room, and was making a great many friends. The doctor couldn"t tell when he would operate, because he would have to take Gwenny any time she happened to be at her best. That was about all of that letter. The next one was just the other day. And Uncle Robert, they have operated! They telegraphed for Doctor Rick, and he is there now. But Mrs. Harter wrote that the operation was over and Doctor Branshaw thinks it will be perfectly successful."
"Well, that is perfectly splendid!" said Uncle Robert. "Did she tell you how Gwenny stood it?"
"Yes. She said for a couple of hours they were afraid her heart was going to stop, but that Doctor Branshaw stood right over her, and had everything ready to start it again if they could. He stayed with her all night. You ought to hear the way Mrs. Harter talks about him. She thinks he is a saint, as well as the greatest doctor in the whole world."
"He a.s.says pretty well toward solid gold," said Uncle Robert.
"Mrs. Harter says they don"t know when they will be able to get home, but already Gwenny sleeps better and is beginning to want to eat. She never did, you know."
"That is certainly fine news," said Uncle Robert. "Anything else happened while I was away?"
"You know that Lucy Breen?" asked Rosanna.
Uncle Robert shook his head.
"She has turned out to be a real nice girl, and Helen and Elise and I go over there a lot. And her mother (it"s really her stepmother, only Lucy is mad if you call her that) is perfectly lovely. If you could only marry _her_, Uncle Robert!"
"Thank you, Rosanna, but Mr. Breen looks husky and he might object."
"Oh, that was a joke," said Rosanna. "Like the time you said you pretty near loved Miss Hooker. I wish you could have heard her laugh when I told her that."
"Oh, you told her, did you?" said Uncle Robert.
"It was so funny I had to."
"What did she say?" asked Uncle Robert, sitting up suddenly.