The little girl in gingham smiled shyly. She had an oval face, pale olive in tint, not glowing with red through the brown tan like Jacqueline’s. Her smile was timid, and her brown eyes were soft.
“She looks like a nice child,” thought the young woman in linen, “and even if she isn’t, if Jacqueline has made up her mind to know her, I’m helpless.”
She washed her hands of her charge, as the saying is, and went into the drawing-room. Don’t blame her too severely! She was young, she was worn out with a hard winter’s teaching, and after all, Jacqueline, with her lordly ways, had been “wished upon her.” She went into the drawing-room, and Jacqueline, like one accustomed to getting her way, sat down in the place that the little girl in gingham eagerly made for her in the seat at her side.
CHAPTER III
A BOND IN COMMON
“What’s your name?” asked Jacqueline.
The little girl in gingham blushed and kept her eyes fixed on Mildred’s buttons.
“Caroline,” she said, in a small voice. “For my grandmother.”
“My name’s Jacqueline Gildersleeve,” cut in her companion. “At school they call me Jackie. I’ll let you.”
Caroline smiled shyly.
“I like Jacqueline better,” she said. “It’s like trumpets and red sunsets.”