“Well,” Jacqueline controlled herself with effort. “It looks as if I couldn’t get at her till she comes back.”
“It looks that way,” agreed Eleanor.
Jacqueline gazed hopelessly at the big house, her haven of refuge, shuttered, bolted, barred against her, by people who were gone, no one could tell her where.
“You’re sure,” she faltered, “that even the maids have gone? Perhaps they could tell me——”
“Sure they’re gone,” said Eleanor cheerfully. “They asked our Maggie to feed the gray cat that comes round their garage.”
Jacqueline drew a long breath.
“Well,” she said, like a game little echo of her Uncle Jimmie. “I guess I’d better be on my way.” Eleanor tagged at her side through the fragrant garden.
“Couldn’t you stay and play with me?” she suggested.
“Not to-day, kid,” Jacqueline told her loftily. She felt herself older than Eleanor—immeasurably older. Wasn’t she suddenly called upon to face a problem beyond Eleanor’s grasping—a problem such as she had never expected to be called upon to face?
Out in Longmeadow Street, which was all a pleasant checker-board of light and shadow, Jacqueline lagged slowly toward the Post Office. What should she do, she asked herself, over and over again? She must get some money. But she couldn’t reach Caroline, not for weeks and weeks. She would have to write directly to Judge Blair, and ask him to address the answer to her as Caroline Tait, and she would have to tell him why. Not that! For he would be sure to write the whole story to Aunt Eunice (he, no doubt, in the inscrutable wisdom of grown-ups, would know where to find her) and then——