The front door stood open but no one was in sight. Mary and Dora, leaving the road, turned their horses toward the small house.
“I feel sort of queer,” Mary said, “sort of story-bookish—coming to call on a strange girl in this romantic canyon and—”
“Sh-ss!” Dora warned. “Someone’s coming to the door.”
CHAPTER XVIII
A STRANGE HOSTESS
Etta Dooley, evidently unused to receiving calls, stood in the open door, her rather sad mouth and her fine hazel eyes unsmiling. Her plain brown cloth dress hid the graceful lines of her young form. She was wondering and waiting.
Mary and Dora dismounted, and, as the red-headed, ten-year-old twins had come pell-mell from the garden, Mary, smiling down at them in her captivating way, asked them not to let the horses wander far from the house. Then, with the same irresistible smile, she approached the still silent, solemn girl.
“Good morning, Etta,” Mary said brightly, pretending not to notice the other girl’s rather disconcerting gaze. “We are friends of Mrs. Newcomb, and she wanted us to become acquainted with you. I am Mary Moore. I live in Gleeson across the valley and Dora Bellman is my best friend from the East.”
Etta’s serious face lighted for a brief moment with a rather melancholy smile as she acknowledged the introduction.
Dora thought, “Poor girl, if that’s the best she can do, how cruel life must have been to her, yet she isn’t any older than we are, I am sure. I wish we could make her forget for a moment. I’d like to see her really smile.”
Etta had stepped to one side and was saying in her grave, musical voice, “Won’t you come in?” Then a dark red flush suffused her tanned face as she added, not without embarrassment, “Though there aren’t two safe chairs for you to sit on. The children made them, such as they are, out of boxes.”