Cousin Penelope suddenly became aware of the by-play going on at her elbow. She turned and looked coldly at the dusty little girl in the uncouth, shabby clothes, who had been so rude as to address her darling. Caroline trembled, just as she had trembled when she first saw Cousin Penelope. But Jacqueline looked up at Cousin Penelope coolly and without terror, and even with her chin slightly tilted.
“Hello!” she addressed the august lady.
Cousin Penelope’s violet eyes looked through Jacqueline, quite as if she hadn’t been there. Then she turned with a smile to Caroline.
“Come, Jacqueline,” she addressed Jacqueline’s substitute. “You must help me buy this thread.”
Deliberately she turned her back on Jacqueline, and made Caroline turn with her, as if she snatched her little charge from contamination.
Jacqueline laughed outright. It was rude and horrid of her, although Cousin Penelope had herself been rude. But Jacqueline really hadn’t meant to laugh. Only Cousin Penelope struck her as funny, and the whole situation, too, was funny.
A slight flush rose to Cousin Penelope’s cheeks. Of course it was foolish to let one’s self be annoyed by the bad manners of a country child.
“Who is that bold little girl?” she asked Miss Crevey.
Her voice was louder than she meant it to be, or Jacqueline’s ears were sharper. Jacqueline overheard, and hugged herself for joy, the naughty thing!
“It’s one of the Conway children from down in the Meadows,” lisped Miss Crevey, as she tied up the little parcel of thread and pins. “Call again, Miss Gildersleeve. Sorry I didn’t have no shoelaces, but people buy ’em off me so fast I jes’ give up keepin’ ’em.”