Jenny was truly disappointed as she had hoped to have an opportunity to ask the lad if it were true that his mother planned selling the farm during the summer.
She consoled herself by recalling his promise to come back soon. And then as Dobbin trotted briskly homeward, the girl fell to dreaming of the various things that might happen during the summer.
CHAPTER X.
BROTHER AND SISTER
“The Palms,” architecturally a Mission Inn, was gorgeously furnished and catered only to the ultra-rich. It was located picturesquely on a cliff with a circling palm-edged drive leading to it.
Santa Barbara was both a winter and summer resort and its hostelries were famed the world over.
Gwynette led her brother to the table of her choice in the luxurious dining room, the windows of which, crystal clear, overlooked the ocean. She was fretful and pouting. Harold, after having drawn out her chair, seated himself and looked almost pensively at the shimmering blue expanse, so close to them, just below the cliff.
“You aren’t paying the least bit of attention to me,” Gwynette complained. “I just asked if you weren’t pining to be over in Paris this spring.”
The lad turned and looked directly at the girl, candor in his clear grey eyes.
“Why no, sister, I do not wish anything of the sort,” he replied sincerely. “What I do hope is that our mother will be well enough to return to us, and that the quiet of our country home will completely restore her health.”
Gwynette shrugged her shoulders, but said nothing, until their orders had been given; then she remarked: