So Aunt Eunice and Caroline, each for good reasons of her own, lapsed into a silence as deep as Mildred’s, and not so sunny. It was fortunate perhaps that just at that moment Cousin Penelope joined them. She carried a shallow, woven basket in which were three cups and saucers of egg-shell thinness, and silver spoons, worn smooth with age, a glass dish of wafer-like slices of lemon, stuck with whole cloves, and another dish of crystallized dates. Behind her came Sallie, with the teapot in its queer wadded Japanese basket, like an old lady church-ward borne in Colonial days, and a light wicker stand of three baskets, each with its own brand of goodies wrapped in a white napkin—crisp buttered toast, wee sandwiches of orange marmalade and of cream cheese, and tiny nut-cakes, coated with caramel frosting.
Caroline sprang up to help Sallie place the folding table, and spread the embroidered white cloth that she carried on her arm, and set out the tea. Aunt Eunice folded her work neatly. Cousin Penelope drew up a chair. Only Mildred was idle, but she wore her idleness like a grace, and no one ever thought of rebuking her.
In the oblique light that filtered through the leaves of woodbine into the summer house, Aunt Eunice and Cousin Penelope and Caroline took their tea. It would have been just like every tea they had taken in the last fortnight, if Caroline had not ventured on a crystallized date. A moment later there rippled across her face a little wave of discomfort, which did not escape Cousin Penelope. Strange how quick Cousin Penelope was—even quicker than Aunt Eunice—to note any change in Caroline!
“What’s the matter, Jacqueline?” she asked promptly.
“Nothing, Cousin Penelope.”
“You surely don’t make faces for the fun of it?”
“Don’t tease the child, Penelope,” struck in Aunt Eunice.
“Mother, please! I want to know. These involuntary twitchings in a child mean something, always. I’ve been reading Stanley Hall.”
“Very recently, Penelope?”
“In the last week, Mother. Tell me, Jacqueline. There! Your face twitched again.”