“All right-o.” Then to the other girl, who stood stiffly erect, Jenny said very sweetly: “If you will come with me, I’ll show you where Grandmother Sue keeps her best china. I know that she will let us use it for this gala occasion.” Then pointing: “See over there, by the hammock, is the little rustic table. There are five of us. I’ll bring out five chairs.”
“Don’t!” Lenora put in. “I’d far rather luxuriate in the hammock. Anyway, four chairs even up the table better.”
Gwyn removed her hat, and followed Jenny toward the kitchen, where in an old-fashioned china closet there were some very pretty dishes. The ware was thin and the fern pattern was attractive, and suitable for an out-of-door tea party.
For the next fifteen minutes these three girls were busy, and to Gwynette’s surprise she was actually enjoying her share of the preparations. After setting the table with a lunch cloth and the pretty dishes, she gathered a cluster of pink wild roses for the center.
“I love those single roses!” Jenny exclaimed when she brought out a large glass pitcher of lemonade on which were floating strips of peel. “They are so simple and—well—just what they really are, not pretending anything.”
Lenora appeared with a glass dish heaped with luscious strawberries. Their hostess was surely in an appreciative mood. “O-o-h! Don’t they look simply luscious under all that powdered sugar? Those sailors don’t know the treat that’s in store for them.”
“And for us!” It was Gwyn’s first impulsive remark. “I didn’t know that I was hungry, but I feel now as though I were famished.”
“So are we!” A hearty voice behind caused them all to turn, and there were the two boys who had stolen up quietly on purpose to surprise the girls. “We landed at the cabin, so we are all washed up and ready for the ‘eats’.”
And it truly was a feast of merriment. Gwyn was surprised to find herself laughing with the others.
Lenora, half reclining in the hammock, was more an observer than a partaker of the active merriment. From her position she could see the profiles of the two girls at the table. They were both dressed in yellow, for Jenny had on her favorite muslin. The shade was somewhat different from Gwyn’s corn-colored linen, but the effect was startlingly similar. They had both removed their hats and their hair was exactly the same soft waving light brown, with gold glints in it. Indeed, it might have been hair on one head. Charles and Harold, of course, had also noted this at an earlier period, but it was Lenora’s first opportunity to study the two girls. What could it mean? It was too decided a likeness to be merely a coincident. She determined to ask Charles.