“You’d ought to see her walk!” cried Nellie.
Aunt Martha smiled rather grimly.
“Next thing she’ll be walking into everything just like Freddie does,” she said. “Young ones and ducks are a good deal alike some ways.”
Jacqueline looked at Aunt Martha for a moment, while she thought rapidly. At Buena Vista she had heard her Aunt Edith and her friends sing the praises of one of their number, who had adopted a little French orphan. To give a child a home was a serious undertaking, even for a lady who, like Aunt Edith’s friend, had a great house and servants and cars and lovely gowns and jewels. But here was Aunt Martha, who had no car but a Ford, and wore tacky old clothes that Aunt Edith’s chambermaid would have scorned, who scrimped on the price of an ice-cream cone and thought a dollar a pound for chocolates (Jacqueline’s really had cost a dollar-fifty!) sinful waste. Aunt Martha was really poor—yet she was giving a home to two children—and now to a third.
“Aunt Martha,” Jacqueline burst out, in the small-boy way that she had when she was excited. “I think you’re awful good to give Caroline Tait a home.”
Aunt Martha stared at her, then smiled.
“Don’t talk about yourself as if you were in a legal document, you funny young one!” she said. “And as to giving you a home, why, there’s always room for one more. Besides,” she went on, and Jacqueline felt dimly the tact and kindness that impelled her, “we haven’t any big girl to make our family circle complete, and I know you’ll be a great help and comfort to us, Caroline.”
I’m glad to say that at this moment Jacqueline felt horribly ashamed of the trick she had played on Martha Conway.
“I—I guess so,” she mumbled blushingly. “I hope so. I’ll try, Aunt Martha.”