Dugald Allan was regarding Sidney with thoughtful eyes. She certainly was not in the least like the fifteen-year-olds he had assiduously avoided. “Some kid,” he commented, inwardly. Aloud he ventured: “Will it be too inquisitive if I ask you what an Egg is? I see Aunt Achsa coming and I think you’ll have just time to tell me—unless you’d rather not.”
“An Egg? Oh, you mean my Egg. Of course you must have thought it funny! Why the Egg’s the money that comes each year from a book my father wrote—Goosefeathers. He was always ashamed of it. So we—my sisters, you see, take turns spending the money any way we want to. This is my first turn. Oh, dear, I wasn’t going to tell a soul.”
“You don’t mean to say that you have any—well, objection, to being known as the daughter of Joseph Romley?”
“Why, I’m not ashamed, of course not, for he was my own dad, and we loved him. Lots of times he acted just as though he wasn’t a poet. But—but I wanted to be my own self; that was to be part of my adventure. You see its awfully stupid always having to remember to act like a poet’s daughter; at least it is for Victoria and me—my older sisters are so used to it that they do it naturally—”
But the astonishing boarder interrupted her with a roar of laughter. In fact, he seemed so amused and even delighted at something that he could not control his mirth. “You are the funniest kid!” Then he had to laugh again. “Did you say you were—only fifteen? And just how do poets’ daughters have to act, anyway? I’ve only known—one. Well, I’ll keep your secret. Only you’ll let me talk about it with you once in a while, won’t you? With everyone else you shall be as ‘different’ as your heart desires. I don’t believe Aunt Achsa knows. Now, let’s go and meet her and assure her that you are ready for the biggest breakfast she can give you!”
“And do you think we can go out on the Arabella today?”
CHAPTER IX
SIDNEY TELLS “DOROTHEA”
After all Sidney never sent the telegram to Trude. But it must not be thought that all in a moment she adapted herself to her new surroundings, or saw Cousin Achsa as the “boarder” had pictured her; her anticipations had soared too high, on the wings of too agile an imagination, to surrender at once to their downfall. Even Dugald Allan she regarded with inward skepticism.
How she rebuilt her small world can be chronicled best by peeping over her shoulder one afternoon, the third day after her coming, as she wrote in her precious “Dorothea” book. At the last moment she had brought this with her, moved by a doubt as to the wisdom of leaving it behind; there was no knowing what liberties the Leaguers, left alone, might take.
“Dorothea Mine, you do not know how it comforts me to feel your dear pages. I am not alone for you are with me. And when I think how I almost left you at home. There is so much to write that I scarcely know where to begin and must needs sit with my pen suspended. This is the funniest place I ever saw but no one, absolutely no one but you, dear bosom friend, shall ever know that. I mean it is funny because everything is just the opposite of what I expected it to be. I had thought, you see, that our relatives probably lived in a big white square house high up on a rock-bound coast against which the waves dashed in foamy crests. That’s the way I wanted the house to look. And instead it is very small and all wigglety, with sand hills around it. But it is cute for the rooms are small like a doll’s house. There is a kitchen in which we do everything which I did not like at first only it is a different kitchen and there is not any other place anyway for the parlor is so stiff and dressed-up looking that it would be shocking to muss it up. The kitchen smells good and shines it is so clean and there is a door that opens right out into the flowers. I shall not say much about Cousin Achsa because Dugald, who is the boarder, says that she is an aristocrat of solid material and he must know because he has lived here summers for a very long time. But she talks bad English like Huldah only she says ‘I swum,’ instead of ‘Yah!’ And she is queer looking but then all is not gold that glitters. But she is very kind to me and I think likes me and she cooks the grandest things and so much. She works all the time. I do not think I ever saw anyone who could work so fast. She is like she was wound up inside and had to keep working until she ran down.