There were pictures on the walls—lovely fairytale pictures, such as she had seen in windows of gorgeous shops, with cobalt blue seas and airy mountains, towered castles and dark thickets shot through with sunshine. There were pretty things on the dressing-table—little trays and boxes of thin china, patterned in green and gold, two slender perfume bottles of cool green glass, a lovely little lady in brocaded silk, with her hair piled high, whose skirts when lifted revealed a hidden pin-cushion. On the writing-desk by the window there was a green blotter with gold and green leather corners, and a brass owl, which was an inkwell, and a brass turtle which miraculously was a stamp box. On the little shelves of the desk were sheets of creamy paper, large and small, and engraved on each sheet was the legend: The Chimnies, Longmeadow, Massachusetts.
“Oh, dear,” thought Caroline, “if only I could write to somebody on this ducky paper, but I mustn’t ever, because my handwriting isn’t Jackie’s, and it would give us all away.”
With a little sigh, she turned from the desk and looked out at the windows. There were two of them. The western window looked into the elms. The northern window looked across some fields to a low mountain, a great heap of dark trees and raw red cliffs, which humped itself like a gigantic beast against the sky.
Caroline was gazing at the mountain, when there came a rap at the door, and a neat middle-aged maid, who must be Sallie, brought in her suitcase (Jacqueline’s suitcase!) and the hatbox. Sallie also offered to help Caroline wash her face. Dear me! If Sallie had known the little girl was Caroline, and not Jacqueline, she would have known that at Cousin Delia’s Caroline had not only washed her own face, but several other little faces besides.
After Sallie had gone, Caroline opened the door and went into the bathroom. It was not a bit like Cousin Delia’s bathroom, with its golden oak woodwork and its zinc tub which Caroline had so often scrubbed. This bathroom was all white tiles and shining nickel, and had a porcelain tub big enough for half a dozen Carolines. On the nickel rods were big towels and little towels and middle-sized towels, thick towels and thin towels, rough towels and smooth towels, all marked with a beautiful big G.
Caroline took off the henna-colored frock most particularly, and she washed her face with some very faintly scented white soap, not forgetting to wash behind her ears, and she washed her neck and her hands and her knees, too, but she decided to let her feet go until after dinner. Then she opened her suitcase (really Jacqueline’s!) and feeling a little apologetic, even though it was Jacqueline’s own plan that she was carrying out, she took Jacqueline’s pretty blue leather traveling-case, with its ivory implements, and she made her hair smooth and her hands tidy.
Caroline, you see, was a gentle little girl, and in the haphazard months at Cousin Delia’s she had not forgotten the careful teachings of her gentle little mother. If she had, her whole story might have turned out very differently. She made herself now as fresh and tidy as possible. Then she sat down in the low rocker beside the bookcase, and looked at the books—such a lot of books, not new ones, she could see, but new to her, bound volumes of St. Nicholas, and a whole set of Miss Alcott, books by Laura E. Richards, and Miss Molesworth, Kate Douglas Wiggin, and Juliana Ewing.
She was dipping into “We and the World” when she heard a knock at her door, and there on the threshold, not waiting to be asked in, stood Cousin Penelope. Now that her hat was off, Caroline saw that she had pretty, fair hair, but she had also a forehead so high and white that it gave her rather a forbidding look.
“Day-dreaming, Jacqueline?” said Cousin Penelope briskly.
“I—I was looking at the books,” Caroline explained, as she rose hastily. “I never saw so many.”