Guy danced that dance with Mrs. Pennington, and the colonel took out Shannon. As they moved over the smooth floor with the easy dignity that good dancers can impart to the fox trot, the girl’s eyes were often on the brother and sister dancing and laughing together.
“How wonderful they are!” she said.
“Who?” inquired the colonel.
“Custer and Eva. Theirs is such a wonderful relationship between brother and sister—the way it ought to be, but very seldom is.”
“Oh, I don’t know that it’s unique,” replied the colonel. “Guy and Grace were that way, and so were my father’s children. Possibly it’s because we were all raised in the country, where children are more dependent upon their sisters and brothers for companionship than children of the city. We all get better acquainted in the country, and we have to learn to find the best that is in each of us, for we haven’t the choice of companions here that a city, with its thousands, affords.”
“I don’t know,” said Shannon. “Perhaps that is it; but anyway it is lovely—really lovely, for they are almost like two lovers. At first, when I heard them teasing each other, I used to think there might be some bitterness in their thrusts; but when I came to know you all better, I realized that your affection was so perfect that there could never be any misunderstanding among you.”
“That attitude is not peculiar to the Penningtons,” replied the colonel. “I know, for instance, of one who so perfectly harmonized with their lives and ideals that in less than a year she became practically one of them.”
He was smiling down into Shannon’s upturned face.
“I know—you mean me,” she said. “It is awfully nice of you, and it makes me very proud to hear you say so, for I have really tried to be like you. If I have succeeded the least bit, I am so happy!”
“I don’t know that you have succeeded in being like us,” he laughed; “but you have certainly succeeded in being liked by us. Why, do you know, Shannon, I believe Mrs. Pennington and I discuss you and plan for you fully as much as we do the children. It is almost as if you were our other daughter.”