tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">"'I haven't seen a canary bird for years,' she murmured"

"'It's a squirrel! A really truly squirrel in this big city!'"

"Mary Rose was perched on a chair across from him and was telling him
of Mifflin"

"There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat"

"'Why didn't you come home before, Mary Rose?' Miss Thorley asked"

MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN

CHAPTER I

"It's there in every lease, plain as print," Larry Donovan insisted. "No childern, no dogs an' no cats. It's in every lease."

"I don't care if it is!" Kate Donovan's face was as red as a poppy and she spoke with a determination that exactly matched her husband's. "You needn't think I'm goin' to turn away my own sister's only child? Who should take care of her if I don't? Tell me that, Larry Donovan, an' be ashamed of yourself for askin' me to send her away!"

"Sure, an' I'd like the little thing here as much as you, Kate, dear," Larry said soothingly, and in her heart Mrs. Donovan knew that he meant it. "But it isn't every day that a man picks up a job like this, janitor of a swell apartmen' buildin', an' if we take in a kid when the lease says plain as can be, no childern, no dogs an' no cats, I'll lose the job an' then how'll I put a roof over your heads an' bread in your stomachs? That's why I'm again' it."

"A clever man like you'll find a way." Mrs. Donovan's confidence was both flattering and stimulating. If a woman expects her husband to do things he just has to do them. He has no choice. "Don't you worry. You haven't been out of work since we were married 'cept the three months you was laid up with inflamm't'ry rheumatiz. The way I look at it is this: the good Lord must have meant us to have Mary Rose or he wouldn't have taken her mother an' her father an' all her relations but us. Seems if he didn't send us any of our own so we'd have plenty of room in our hearts an' home for her. She's a present to us straight from the Lord."

"That may be, Kate," Larry scratched his puzzled head. "But will the agents, will Brown an' Lawson look at it that way? The lease says——"

"Bother the lease!" Mrs. Donovan interrupted him impatiently. "What's the lease got to do with a slip of a girl who's been left an orphan down in Mifflin?"

"That's just what I'm tryin' to tell you." Larry clung to his temper with all of his ten fingers, for it was irritating to have her refuse to understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? God knows they make enough as it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's no lie. Folks—they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin' fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman on the first floor has too much hot water an' Miss Adams on the third too little. Mrs. Rawson won't stand for Mrs. Matchan's piano an' Mrs. Matchan kicks on Mrs. Rawson's sewin' machine. Mr. Jarvis never gets his newspaper an' Mrs. Lewis al'ys gets two. Mrs. Willoughby jumps on me if a pin drops in the hall. She can't stand no noise since her mother died. She don't do nothin' but cry. I don't blame her man for stayin' away. I'd as soon be married to a fountain. When they can't find anythin' else to jaw me about they take the laundries. An' selfish! There isn't one can see beyond the reach of his fingers. I used to think that folks were put into the world to be friendly an' helpful to each other but I've learned different." He sighed and shook his head helplessly. "Mrs. Bracken on the first floor has lived here as long as we have, two years nex' October, an' I've yet to hear her give a friendly word to anyone in the house. When little Miss Smith up on the third was sick las' winter did her nex' door neighbor lend a hand? She did not. She was just worried stiff for fear she'd catch somethin'. She gave me no peace till Miss Smith was out of the house an' into a hospital. Peace! I've forgot there was such a word. They won't stand for any kid in the house when the lease says no childern, no dogs an' no cats."

"You can't tell me anythin' about them!" Mrs. Donovan agreed with pleasant promptness. It is always agreeable to have one's estimate of human nature endorsed. "An' the most of 'em look like thunder clouds when you meet 'em. Ain't it queer, Larry, how few folks look happy when a smile's 'bout the cheapest thing a body can wear? An' it never goes out of style. I know I never get tired seein' one on old or young. All folks can't be rich nor han'some but most of us could look pleasant if we thought so, seems if. I want to tell that to little Miss Macy every time I see her, but I know full well she'd say I was impudent, so I keep my mouth shut. Maybe the tenants won't stand for a child in the house. They haven't wit to see that the Lord had his good reasons when he invented the fam'ly. But there's some way. There must be! An' we've got to find it, Larry Donovan. Are you goin' to wash Mrs. Rawson's windows today?" She changed the subject abruptly. "She called me up twice yesterday to see they needed it, as if I had nothin' to do but traipse aroun' after her."

Larry understood exactly how she felt. He had been called up more than twice to see the windows and had promised to clean them within twenty-four hours. Before he went away he patted his wife's shoulder and said again: "It isn't that I don't want the little thing here, Kate. She'd be good for both of us. It's bad for folks to grow old 'thout young ones growin' up around 'em, but a job's a job. It wouldn't be easy for a man to get another as good as this at this time of year. See the home it gives you."

He looked proudly around the pleasant basement living-room. Open doors led into the dining-room and hall from which more doors opened into kitchen and sleeping-rooms. There was a small room at the end of the hall in which Mrs. Donovan kept her sewing machine but for which, in the last twenty-four hours, she had found another use. The apartment was very comfortable and Mrs. Donovan kept it as neat as wax. There was never any dust on her floors if the fault-finding tenants did say there was in the halls.

Mrs. Donovan was proud of her home also, but she frowned as she glanced about her. "There's plenty of room for one more," she grumbled. "That little room beyond ours is just the place for a child. But go on, Larry, we'll think of a way. We've got to! It shan't ever be said that Kate Donovan turned away her only sister's only child. Do you mind when Mary married Sam Crocker? It was thought to be a big step up for the daughter of an Irish carpenter to marry a Crocker, the son of ol' Judge Crocker an' a lawyer himself. Seems if there never was a prettier girl than Mary an' she was happy till she died. An' now Sam's dead, too. He wasn't the man his father was. He couldn't keep money an' he couldn't earn it. Mary used to feel sorry for me, Larry, because you weren't a Crocker, but if she could see us now an', seems if, I believe she can, she mus' be glad I got a good honest hard workin' Irishman. You've a good job an' a little money in the bank. You don't owe no man a penny. That's more'n