It was really dreadful, the way Jacqueline was crying now that she had let herself go. Cousin Penelope, coming up the stairs, heard the sobs and screams and hurried into the room.
“Mother!” she spoke frowningly. “Really, you mustn’t make yourself ill—over this child.”
Oh, the worlds of contempt in Cousin Penelope’s tone, for all that “this child” was Jack Gildersleeve’s truly daughter!
Aunt Edie came, too, from the guest room down the hall, more fluttery than ever, and Uncle Jimmie, who wasn’t fluttery at all. It was he who took the situation sternly in hand.
“Cut it out now, Jack,” he bade. “Don’t be a rotten sport.”
Obediently Jacqueline took her arms from about Aunt Eunice. She was frightened into complete silence, when she saw how pale and faint Aunt Eunice looked. Of course she would be a sport. Somehow she must make Uncle Jimmie stop frowning at her.
“I didn’t mean——” she sniffled. “I’m—awful sorry, Aunt Eunice. Go on and get your old dinner, everybody. I’m not hungry, nor anything, and I’m going right straight off to bed.”
Aunt Eunice didn’t even kiss Jacqueline. She went away with Cousin Penelope, as if she had had all she could stand for one evening, and she took Caroline’s letter, clasped tight in her hand. Uncle Jimmie, at a sign from Aunt Edie, followed them, but as he went he cast at Jacqueline, struggling with her tears, a look that was a shade less disgusted.
Aunt Edie lingered.
“Now don’t you cry any more,” she said kindly enough, and hugged Jacqueline. “It’s all over, and you’re sorry, and everybody knows it, and forgives you, so everything is all right again. We shall have a ripping trip, and of course your Uncle Jimmie was joking about the school. You won’t be there all the time anyway—we’ll take you to places with us—and you shall buy heaps of pretty things. Now smile to me, old doodle-bug!”