They did not get beyond the fitting, though, for Cousin Penelope came strolling in, to say that Jacqueline had better dress now. They must be going along to Madame Woleski’s.
“Just stop at Miss Crevey’s, will you, and get me some thread,” bade Aunt Eunice. “I shall need eighty cotton and a spool of sixty, if Jacqueline and I are going into the dressmaking business.”
It seemed to Caroline hardly necessary to change her frock. She thought the henna-colored crêpe good enough for almost any occasion. But of course she did not argue with Cousin Penelope. She was terribly afraid lest she might make herself too fine, but she took Cousin Penelope as a guide, just as she did at the table, and she decided that if Cousin Penelope wore a cool muslin, she would wear muslin, too. So she put on a pretty muslin, with small yellow roses on a white ground and yellow flowers of organdie at the ribbon girdle. Her socks were of white silk and her sandals of white kid. From the hatbox she selected a white leghorn, with stalks of yellow wheat and some wee blue flowers round the crown.
She was in two minds about opening the jewel-case. She had the key in Jacqueline’s vanity bag, tied fast to the trunk key, but it seemed rather horrid to make free with Jacqueline’s jewelry. Still if she didn’t wear any, people might suspect she wasn’t Jacqueline. So she unlocked the leather case, and marveled at all the pretty pins and chains that she found laid in the little velvet lined drawers. She selected a chain of queer small beads, with flecks of yellow and blue and green in them that would go nicely with the colors in her dress and her hat.
It seemed that she had by chance selected very wisely, for when Cousin Penelope came to look her over, she fairly flushed with pleasure.
“So you put on the beads I sent you,” she cried. “That’s a very pretty tribute, Jacqueline.”
“I—I like them,” stammered Caroline.
“So do I!” said Cousin Penelope, quite merrily. “How many things we have in common!”
This made Caroline feel at home with Cousin Penelope, and they chattered together, quite volubly for two people so shy and self-contained, while they drove through Longmeadow Street to Madame Woleski’s.
The house that the Polish lady had taken for the summer was quite at the farther end of the Street, right under the shadow of the mountain. It was a little, irregular house which had been an artist’s. The living room had a big window on the north side, and the piano was drawn across it. The furniture was old and dingy, and nothing matched with anything else, thought Caroline. There were dark, rich-looking small rugs on the floor, and on the walls were unframed sketches, which seemed to Caroline to look like not much of anything, unless it were the drawings that Cousin Delia’s eldest baby made. But Caroline didn’t know as much about pictures as she knew about music.