“Well, I think she got it all out of a book,” said the young engineer, rather doubtfully. “You never heard such talk in your life! I imagine it’s just a pose of Annette’s. She’s a nice enough girl, but she’s got Aunt Lettie’s idea of always being in the public eye. I don’t know how long the Polktown public will stand for her.”
There was a branch of it already that was displeased with Annette Bowman, as Janice very well knew. The ladies of the Aid Society laid it all to her that they had not made a financial success of the lawn party. People had been so much interested in the exhibitions of dancing on the Prices’ porch that they had forgotten to spend their money at the tables. So, much of the food prepared had been wasted.
Elder Concannon led a party, too, who opposed the régime of the city girl, though that was a chronic opposition that did not count for much, after all. And Miss Bowman set out at once to charm away the grouch of the Ladies’ Aid. She succeeded to a degree, for she was willing to be interviewed upon the subject of dress morning, noon and night, and idling about the village as she did all day, she was always ready to be questioned, and offered advice in the matter of style, in and out of season.
Janice and Annette did not meet frequently. The former could not complain of any particular neglect upon the part of Frank’s sister—not at all! Nor did Miss Bowman slight her when they were in company together. Only the girl from the fashionable boarding school appeared to set Janice in her place as a girl of much tenderer years; which might have hurt Janice had she been sensitive about her lack of age.
Frank often expressed his desire that Janice and Annette should be good friends; but, to tell the truth, neither girl desired any intimacy. They had few tastes in common. Whereas Janice Day was as ready and as eager for a good time as any normal girl possibly could be, her idea of amusement was not always in accord with the ideas of Annette and the crowd of girls whom she very quickly won to her train.
Janice had her car, and she could have filled it every afternoon with a party of girls of her own age, and ridden about the country, or to Middletown or some neighboring hamlet. But Janice found most of the girls distasteful to her. When she had first come to Polktown the big girls in Miss ’Rill Scattergood’s school had been very unkind. Their treatment had driven Janice to find companionship and friends in other directions. She visited more people like Miss ’Rill and her mother, Hopewell Drugg, the Hammett Twins, and the like, than she did houses where there were girls of her own age.
She did not wish to be considered arrogant, or selfish; therefore she had asked many of the girls to ride with her. But almost always her companions talked of things that did not interest Janice in the least. Of late the conversation of most of the girls of a companionable age was made up of fashion and dress, while they sang the praises of Annette Bowman, what she was doing and what she was going to do.
“I am afraid I must be jealous of her,” thought Janice, with some horror. “I even wish Mr. Bowman would stop talking about her. And I am sure she dislikes me. I never did feel just so about anybody in my life before.”
So she took out older ladies in her car almost entirely. Sometimes she went to call on the Hammett Twins—Miss Blossom and Miss Pussy. Neither of them had plucked up sufficient courage to ride in Janice’s car; but they loved to have the girl come to see them.
And when she was alone, she liked to ride around by the squatters’ cabin in Elder Concannon’s woods. Not that she could get near to the Trimmins children, nor did she meet their mother again. But she had such a deep interest in the black-haired girl, Jinny, that Janice actually could not keep her out of her mind.