“Oh, yes, of course.” The girl’s eyes were glowing. Now indeed the resemblance to Jenny was marked. “We have the entree everywhere.”
As they walked side by side toward the big house. Gwyn was conscious of being happier than she had ever been in all her seventeen years. Then she realized, with a pang of regret, that in two weeks this companion who seemed to understand her better than did anyone else, would be gone.
At the foot of the steps she turned and held out her hand. “Goodnight, Mr. Gale,” she said simply. “Thank you for escorting me home.”
CHAPTER XXXI.
CONFLICTING EMOTIONS
Harold was more than glad to grant his sister’s request that the sailboat, which for years had been suspended in the boathouse, should be lowered and launched. Naturally, after having dried for so long leaks appeared as soon as it was afloat in the quiet cove sheltered by the little peninsula, Rocky Point. Again it was drawn up and a merry morning the two boys spent with the help of an old man about the place who at one time had sailed the seas. The cracks were caulked and again the pretty craft floated, seeming to dance for joy, over the smoothly rolling waves, when it was tied to the buoy a short distance from shore. The rowboat had been used by the gardener for fishing excursions, and so that was in readiness. The boys had been glad to find that, though the sails were somewhat yellowed, they had been so carefully rolled away and covered that no repairs were necessary.
“We’d better make a trial trip in the craft before we take the ladies,” Charles suggested when, dressed in their overalls, they paused on their way to the farm the next morning to look out at the boat.
It was that very day that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones again decided that she would like to be taken to the pond-lily garden and have Jenny Warner read to her. When, leaning on Miss Dane’s arm, she arrived in the charming shrub-sheltered nook, she saw Gwynette lying in a hammock which was stretched between two sycamore trees near. The girl at once arose and went forward to greet her mother with an expression of real solicitude which the woman had never before seen in her daughter’s face. She even glanced again to be sure that she had not been mistaken. Brightly the girl said, “Good morning, Ma Mere. I’m glad you are able to be out this lovely day. I was just coming to your room to ask if you’d like me to read aloud to you. I found such a good story in the library, a new one.”
The pleased woman glanced at the book the girl held. It was the one in which Jenny Warner had read a few chapters.
There was a glad light in the eyes of the girl’s foster-mother.
Gwyn saw it, and for the first time in her life her conscience stirred, rebuking her for having never before thought of doing anything to add to her mother’s pleasure.