Early as it was, Jacqueline had been up already for half an hour. She had dressed herself in a jumper of wood brown jersey, and a frilled blouse of white silk, with an orange colored tie. She had put some last things into her suitcase, which would go in Uncle Jimmie’s car. Her trunk, which Aunt Edie and Sallie had packed the night before, would go by express straight to the steamer.
When her packing was done, she left her brown cape coat, with its buttons of pressed leather, and her little soft motor hat of brown, stitched with orange, lying on the bed with her precious vanity bag, and she slipped down the back-stairs into the kitchen. She had been there once before, you’ll remember.
Hannah was mixing batter, and the waffle iron was steaming on the stove.
“So you’re the young one that really belongs here, are you?” boomed Hannah. “Well, I never did, in all my born days!”
She didn’t say what it was she never did, and Jacqueline thought it tactful not to ask her. She meant to be very tactful, all the rest of her life!
Just then Sallie came out from the dining room, on her way to get chilled water and unsalted butter from the ice-chest. At sight of Jacqueline she began to giggle.
“Say,” cried Sallie, “if you’d been here all summer, I guess things wouldn’t have gone fast, nor nothing.”
Jacqueline grinned in acknowledgment of the compliment, but rather sheepishly.
“I want to give you back your dime,” she said.
“Oh, shucks!” cried Sallie, reddening.