“Perhaps she has.”
“Mr. Howbridge said we were Uncle Peter’s only heirs,” said Agnes, doggedly.
“May—maybe he didn’t know about this John Augustus Treble. We must find out about it,” said Ruth, much worried. “Of course, we wouldn’t want to keep anybody out of the property, if they had a better right to it.”
“What?” shrilled Agnes. “Give it up? Not—on—your—life!”
In the meantime, Tess and Dot scarcely knew how to talk to Lillie Treble. She was such a strange girl! They had never seen anybody at all like her before.
Lillie walked around the house, out of her mother’s sight, just as mincingly as a peacock struts. Her look of angelic sweetness would have misled anybody. She just looked as though she had never done a single wrong thing in all her sweet young life!
But Tess and Dot quickly found that Lillie Treble was not at all the perfect creature she appeared to the casual observer. Her angelic sweetness was all a sham. Away from her mother’s sharp eye, Lillie displayed very quickly her true colors.
“Those all your dolls?” she demanded, when she was shown the collection of Tess and Dot in the garden house.
“Yes,” said Tess.
“Well, my mother says we’re going to stay here, and if you want me to play with you,” said this infantile socialist, “we might as well divide them up right now.”