Mrs. Van Orden’s residence was large and handsome and a-light from top to bottom. There were three daughters from seventeen to thirteen. They had always been very friendly with the Crawfords, and this gathering was a good deal in honor of the young midshipman who was so soon to go on his first cruise of three years.
The girls in the dressing room hovered about Zay. Wasn’t it wonderful that her sister had been found and living here all these months? Why it was just like a story!
“A princess in disguise,” laughed Zay. “That was what I called her.”
“And is she—does she look like you?”
“No, although we are twins you can easily tell us apart. She is taller; I think she will be like mother. Her hair is—well a sort of bronzy light brown, and her eyes are such a dark blue that you might mistake them for black, and she’s rather grave; not such a fly-away as I am. Of course, you know, we have only had her one day though the others went over to Mrs. Barrington’s to see her.”
“And wasn’t she something there,” asked a girl.
“She was going to study for a teacher. Mrs. Barrington expected to keep her after her—well, I suppose we might call it a foster-mother, died. You see Mrs. Boyd thought the nurse mamma had was her real mother and she felt so sorry for the baby believing the true mother had been killed.”
“Why it is a real romance.”
Zaidee meant to put it on a right foundation. At school once she had, in a way, stood up for her when Louie Howe tried to establish a distinction. So why shouldn’t she now, and always, even if she had not taken Marguerite cordially to her heart. No one outside should offer a slight.
“And you believe it is all true—”