Sisters

  CHAPTER IX. AN OLD FRIEND APPEARS

  The next morning, while Jenny was standing in front of her mirror in hersun-flooded bedroom nearest the sea, she reviewed in memory the events ofthe day previous. She found it hard to understand her own anger or why ithad flared so uncontrollably. After all Grandpa Si _was_ the farmer inMrs. Poindexter-Jones' employ and, what was more, Grandma Sue _had_ beenhousekeeper over at the big house for years before Jenny had been born,and there was no disgrace in that. The girl challenged the thought thathad recalled this almost forgotten fact. Didn't Miss Dearborn say that itis not your occupation but what you are that really counts?

  Determinedly she put from her the troubling memory and centered herattention for the first time on the reflection before her. She did indeedlook pretty in the ruffled white muslin with the pink sprig embroidery,and tender brown eyes looked out from under a wide white hat, pinkwreathed. There was no complaining thought in her heart because bothdress and hat were many summers old.

  Opening a drawer in her old-fashioned bureau, Jenny took out her prizedpink silk parasol and removed its soft paper wrappings.

  A mocking bird just outside her open window poured one joyous song afteranother into the peaceful sunlit air. For a thoughtful moment the girlgazed out at the shimmering blue sea. "I'm sorry I flared up at Harold'ssister," she said aloud. Then hearing her grandmother calling from theside porch, she sang out: "Coming, Granny Sue."

  Jenny could not have told why everything and everyone revolved aroundHarold P-J. She thought of the proud woman, whom she had once seen in thelong ago, as "Harold's mother," and of the girl whom she had defied as"Harold's sister," yet she had not seen the boy since that stormy day twoyears before.

  Skipping to the side porch, she found Grandma Sue looking very sweet inher lavender muslin, and tiny black bonnet with lavender ribbons, alreadyup on the wide seat of the buggy. Breaking a few blossoms from theheliotrope at the corner of the house, Jenny handed them up to her. "Putthem on, somewhere," she called merrily, "and I shall have a cluster ofpink Cecile Brunner roses for my belt. Granddad, how dressed up you lookin the shirt that I ironed. Do you want a buttonhole bouquet?"

  "Me?" the old man's horrified expression amused the girl. Standing ontiptoe, she kissed his brown, wrinkled cheek, then clambered up besideher grandmother.

  Silas Warner climbed over the wheel and took up the loose rein. Dobbinwas indeed a remarkable horse. He seemed to know that on Sunday he was toturn toward the village, and yet he stopped after having cantered abouttwo miles and turned down a pine-edged lane that led to St.Martin's-by-the-Sea. It was the only church in all that part of thecountry, and so was attended by rich and poor alike. The seminary girlsattended the service all together and filled one side of the smallchurch. Jenny, near the aisle, close to the back, was kneeling in prayerwhen a late arrival entered and knelt in front of her. It was a young mandressed in a military school uniform.

  Grandpa Si was the first to recognize the stranger and he whispered tohis companion: "Ma ain't that little Harry?"

  Discreetly the good woman nodded, her eyes never leaving the face of thepreacher who was beginning his sermon. Jenny's heart was in a flutter ofexcitement. Surely it was her friend Harold P-J, and yet, two yearsbefore he had been just a boy. Now he was much taller with such broadshoulders and how straight he stood when they rose to sing a hymn. Shehad not seen his face as she was directly behind him. Perhaps, after all,she was mistaken, she thought, for she had plainly heard his sister tellher friends that Harold was not expected until the mother returned fromFrance in July and it was only the first week in May. But she had notbeen wrong, as she discovered as soon as the benediction had been said,for the young man turned with such a pleased expression on his goodlooking face, and, holding out his hand to the older woman, he said withringing sincerity in his voice. "It's great, Mrs. Warner, to see youlooking so well." Then, after giving a hearty handshake, and receivingtwo from the farmer, the boy turned smilingly toward Jenny. "You aren't,you _can't_ be that little, rubber-hooded girl whom I picked up two yearsago in the storm!"

  "I am though." Jenny's rose-tinted cheeks were of a deeper hue, "But youalso have grown."

  Standing very straight and tall, the boy looked down beamingly upon allthree. "I'll say I have," he agreed, "but honestly I do hope I'm notgoing up any higher." Then after a quick glance across the aisle, wherethe Granger Place Young Ladies were filing out, he said hastily. "Mrs.Warner, won't you invite a stranded youth to take dinner with you today?I've got to see sister this afternoon, and return to the big citytonight, but I'm pining to have a real visit with you." Then to Jenny, byway of explanation. "Perhaps you never heard about it, but your GrandmaSue took care of me the first three years of my life and so I shallalways consider her a grandmother of mine." Susan Warner's mind had flownhastily back to the home larder. What did she have cooked that was fineenough for company. But the youth seemed to understand. "Just anythingthat you have ready is what I want. No fuss and feathers, remember that.I'll be there in one hour. Will that be time enough?"

  Grandpa Si spoke up heartily. "I reckon you'll find a dinner waitin'whenever you get there, Harry-boy."

  Gwynette received her brother with a sneering curve to her mouth thatmight have been pretty. "Well, didn't you know that everyone in thechurch was watching you and criticizing you for making such a fuss overour mother's servants," was her ungracious greeting. A dull red appearedin the boy's cheeks, but he checked the angry words before they wereuttered. Instead he said: "Gwynette, may I call at the seminary thisafternoon? I have had a letter from Mother and I want to talk it overwith you."

  "This afternoon?" a rising inflection of inquiry. "Aren't you going totake me to The Palms to dine? I'm just starved for a real course dinnerand the minute I saw you I made up my mind that was what we would do."

  The boy hesitated. His conscience rebuked him. He knew that their motherwould expect him to be chivalrous to his sister. He also knew that avision in pink and white, a pair of appealing liquid brown eyes had, forthe moment caused him to forget his duty. "All right, sis," he said,trying not to let the reluctance in his heart show in his voice. "Askyour chaperone if you may go with me now."

  As soon as he was alone, Harold hurried around the vine-covered church tothe sheds where he hoped to find the Warner family. They were justdriving out of the lane, but the old man drew rein when he saw the ladhurrying toward them.

  "I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Warner," he began with a ring of sincerity inhis voice, which carried conviction to the listeners. "Gwynette wants meto take her to The Palms for dinner, and, of course, _that_ is what ourmother would wish me to do."

  "Wall, wall, that's all right, Harry," Grandpa Si put in consolingly."'Taint as though you can't come again. You're welcome over to the farmwhenever you're down this way."

  Harold's last glance was directed at the girl as also was his partingremark. "I'm going to run down from the city real soon. Good-bye."

  Jenny was truly disappointed as she had hoped to have an opportunity toask the lad if it were true that his mother planned selling the farmduring the summer.

  She consoled herself by recalling his promise to come back soon. And thenas Dobbin trotted briskly homeward, the girl fell to dreaming of thevarious things that might happen during the summer.