When they had removed their wraps and had descended, they were greeted by Mrs. Poindexter-Jones, who, beautifully gowned, sat in her wheeled chair, with Gwynette, lovely in a filmy blue chiffon, standing at her side. Miss Dane had reluctantly consented to permit her patient, who had grown stronger very rapidly in the last few days, to remain downstairs for one hour.
When the hidden orchestra began to play, Miss Dane pushed the invalid chair to a palm-sheltered nook, wherein Susan Warner and her good man had at once taken refuge, and there, at their side, the patrician woman sat watching the young people dance, talking to her companions from time to time. Then she asked Miss Dane to tell her daughter that she would like to speak to her. “I don’t see her just now. You may find her in her room. She had forgotten her necklace.”
Miss Dane, after glancing about at the dancers, went upstairs. There was someone in the room where the wraps had been removed. Rushing in the open door, the nurse said: “Miss Gwynette, your mother wishes to speak to you.”
The girl turned and, smiling in her friendly way, said, “You are mistaken, Miss Dane. I am Jenny Warner.”
Miss Dane hesitated, gazing intently at the apparition before her. “Pardon me, Miss Warner,” she then said. “It must be because you and Miss Gwynette are both wearing blue that you look so much alike.”
She turned away and met Gwyn just ascending the stairway. The nurse had been so impressed with the resemblance that she could not refrain from exclaiming about it. “Really,” she concluded, “you two girls look near enough alike to be sisters.”
Gwyn did not feel at all complimented, and her reply was coldly given. “Tell Mother that I will come to her as soon as I get my necklace.”
Jenny was leaving the bedroom, whither she had gone for her handkerchief, just as the other girl was entering. One glance at the haughty, flushed face of her hostess and the farmer’s granddaughter knew that something of a disturbing nature had occurred, but she did not dream that she was in any way concerned in the matter. She was very much surprised to hear Gwyn saying in her haughtiest manner: “Miss Warner, my mother’s nurse tells me that she spoke to you just now, believing that you were me. I recall that the girls in the seminary once alluded to a resemblance they pretended to see. [Will you do me the favor to stand in front of this long mirror with me,] that I may also find the resemblance, if there is one, which I doubt!”
Jenny, her heart fluttering with excitement, stood beside the older girl and gazed directly at her in the mirror.
Gwyn continued, appraisingly: “Our eyes are hazel and we both have light brown hair, but so have many other girls. I cannot understand, can you, why Miss Dane should have said that we look near enough alike to be sisters.”