Jacqueline might be mad enough at Caroline for letting herself be whisked away, no one knew where, without a word to her, but still she wasn’t going to let her in for the sort of scolding she was sure that pinch-faced Cousin Penelope was bound to give her, when she found her to be an impostor. No, she’d got to grin and bear it. No money—no chance to get money—and all the work to do—and Aunt Martha tired out—and Grandma crying in her feebleness for the thin china that no one could afford to buy her.
Oh, prancing camelopards, and bounding orang-outangs! Also chisel-toothed baboons! There were not beasts enough in the menagerie, nor words enough in the unabridged dictionary to express the feelings that surged in Jacqueline’s bosom beneath the faded pink and white checked gingham! She felt the tears of hot anger and disappointment and pity, too, for little Grandma, well up into her eyes. To hide them from the curious gaze of two young girls, who came sauntering toward her along the graveled sidewalk, she stopped, and stared hard into a convenient shop window, which happened to be Miss Crevey’s.
There were all sorts of things displayed in the window—cards of white ruching, edged with black, novels by Mary Jane Holmes, glass jars of wilted candy sticks, china boxes with the words “Souvenir of Longmeadow” painted in gilt upon them, sheets of dusty paper dolls in staring colors. Jacqueline’s gaze passed over the queer assortment of articles, and rested on the little shelf against the wall, at one side of the window. On the shelf was a glove box of birch bark and cones and a bright-colored copy of “The Angelus,” and between them——
She rubbed her eyes. She looked again. Yes, between them stood what Aunt Martha had vowed no longer could be had for love nor money—a cup of thin china—an ancient cup—with a pattern of green dragons.
CHAPTER XXIX
SO MUCH FOR SO MUCH
Inside Miss Crevey’s stuffy little shop a woman customer kept insisting that she must have lilac ribbon two inches wide, although Miss Crevey told her that blue ribbon three inches wide, which Miss Crevey happened to have in stock, would be just as good, if not better. Jacqueline teetered impatiently from one foot to the other, while she waited for the end of the argument. The woman left at last in dudgeon, without buying so much as a paper of pins.
“Well, there’s no suitin’ some folks,” Miss Crevey muttered waspishly, and turned to Jacqueline. “Come now, what d’ye want, little girl? Speak up! I won’t have no young ones hangin’ round in here, handlin’ things and askin’ questions. Ain’t you got a tongue?”
Most certainly Jacqueline had, and she used it, the moment Miss Crevey stopped for breath and gave her half a chance.
“If you please,” she said, “I want to know the price of the cup and saucer on the shelf in the window.”
Miss Crevey fixed her eyes on a dinky little “Souvenir of Longmeadow” that might have graced a doll’s tea table.