“Well,” said Jacqueline defensively, “you liked the piano, didn’t you?”
“Y-yes,” Caroline confessed, and then the tears began to drip down her cheeks, and she hid her head in the pillow.
“Oh, suffering chipmunks!” Jacqueline cried angrily. “Don’t do that! Don’t do that, I tell you! Would you rather we hadn’t?”
“I-I don’t know!” wept Caroline. “No, I guess not. Yes, I guess so—perhaps.” She dried her eyes uncertainly with the front of her wrist. “There are your clothes, Jackie,” she said in a voice that she tried vainly to keep steady. “All folded up on the chair. I put them on fresh this morning—down at Monk’s Bay—in the beautiful Shieling.” She bit her lip that trembled, and went on: “Don’t you believe—you could wear them back?”
Jacqueline gave her a startled look.
“But I want to wear the Peggy Janes,” she said, “and knock ’em dead with surprise.”
Couldn’t she just see herself “making an entrance” at the Gildersleeves’ poky house—the dismay of that starched Cousin Penelope—the amazement of Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie?
“But they are my Peggy Janes,” said Caroline wistfully, “and I’ve got to have some clothes to wear.”
“You can have those duds of mine,” said Jacqueline, with an airy gesture toward the kilted pongee skirt, the orange silk slip-over, the leghorn hat, the ruffled underwear. “We’ll swap.”
“No, no!” Caroline cried in such a distressful voice that Jacqueline was amazed. “I don’t want ’em—I don’t want ever to see ’em again—take ’em away, Jackie, please—please!”