Up in the golden green room, all fresh and ordered for the day, Caroline looked helplessly at the big trunk that was Jacqueline’s. When she had got the key from Jacqueline’s vanity bag, and Sallie had opened the trunk, and she saw that it opened like a closet, and glimpsed the frocks all hung on frames, she looked more helpless still. She was thankful when Cousin Penelope took charge of things.
“Sit down, Jacqueline,” Cousin Penelope bade with decision. “Sallie will unpack, and I’ll look things over. It’s the quickest way for me to find out what you have and what you haven’t, and if you are like most children, I shall need to know.”
So Caroline sat down in the rocker, with Mildred on her knee, and in an aloof, cool manner watched the taking out of what seemed to her the princess-like wardrobe that had been wished upon her. There were frocks of organdie and crêpe de chine, of muslin and fine gingham. There were jumpers of tricotine and of jersey, and delicate little frilled blouses of silk. (Privately Caroline wondered where the everyday frocks could be!) There were a dozen pairs of shoes and slippers and boots and sandals, all on nice little beribboned trees. There were little coats and sweaters of many colors and all sorts of texture. There were stacks of filmy undergarments, and lapsful of silken socks. There were garters and hair-ribbons and handkerchiefs and silk gloves. There was a lovely little blue leather writing-case, and a jewel-case, and a camera.
Everything in the trunk Caroline, sitting gravely silent, admired with all her heart, except the riding suit. When she saw the little white breeches and the sleeveless brown coat unfolded, her heart sank within her.
“Oh, Cousin Penelope!” she cried in despair. “Have I got to ride horseback?”
She was almost in tears. She had never been on a horse in her life. If they put her on one, they’d know in a minute she wasn’t Jacqueline, and the piano and the Polish lady would be lost to her forever.
Cousin Penelope came to her side. For the first time Caroline saw her protective and almost tender. She understood it all, did Penelope. That horsy Amazon, Edith Delane, had forced that sensitive, timid little girl, who was all Gildersleeve, as any one could see, into riding horseback and doing the athletic feats to which the Delane woman had referred in her letters. Well, the Delane woman was hundreds of miles away, and Penelope was here in charge.
“We arranged for a saddle-horse, as your aunt wished,” she told Caroline. “But you are not going to ride at all, my dear, unless you wish to.”
So the horrid specter of a ramping steed was laid at rest, and Caroline went happily through the hours of the day that was brimful of wonders. She played for an hour on the piano. She ate a luncheon that seemed to her grander than most dinners. Then she sat with Aunt Eunice in Aunt Eunice’s room, which was furnished with old dark pieces of polished wood, with glass knobs on the drawers. Aunt Eunice had the dearest of work tables, all unexpected drawers and cubbies, and she had a piecebox full of pretties that she could turn into trifles for bazaars—bits of silk and satin, velvet and brocade, quarter-yards of wide figured ribbon, bits of lace and silver tissue, flowers of silk.
Together Aunt Eunice and Caroline planned a sumptuous party frock for Mildred, and they even cut it out and gave her a first fitting, which Mildred endured with more patience than some young ladies display on such occasions.