“I did yesterday,” protested Nellie.
“You will to-day,” said Jacqueline in her bossiest voice, “or else you won’t sleep in the bed with me, and don’t you forget it.”
Quite as important as the mother of a large family, Jacqueline bustled into the kitchen, which was now growing dusky. Soft splashings from the washroom and gurgles from Freddie told her that Aunt Martha had forestalled her at part of her labors. She must already have bathed and bedded Annie, and now she was at work on Freddie.
Honestly Jacqueline was sorry to seem to have shirked.
“Oh, come now, Aunt Martha!” she spoke into the washroom. “You didn’t need to do that. You knew I was coming.”
Aunt Martha looked up from where she knelt in the lamp light to scrub Freddie.
“’Tisn’t likely you’ll have time for any chores to-night,” she explained. “Your folks’ll be sending for you any minute now.”
“Oh!” said Jacqueline, with a squeak like the squeak of a rubber pig when you let the air out of it. “You mean—but they can’t be! They haven’t got back from the beach—not yet!”
“Everything’s happened all in a heap,” Aunt Martha told her. “They’ve come back from the beach, sure enough, to meet your aunt and uncle. They must be here by this time. Caroline turned up ’bout five o’clock with the news.”
“Caroline is here?”