“You’re not a Gypsy,” she said, “if you are a black-eyed wanderer. They never mend or clean anything. But what does Miss Swinnerton like to do? Is she fond of housework, too?”
“Amy? No, not specially. She sketches and paints in water colors, and botanizes, and looks for bits of stones and rocks which she examines through a glass, and translates French and generally potters around. She’s always busy. She can do anything from making an omelette to painting a picture.”
Billie turned her eyes half wistfully toward the plump brown-haired Amy Swinnerton. She felt suddenly very inefficient and worthless.
“I can’t do anything,” she said, frowning. “I’m ashamed of myself.”
“You can run a motor car and keep it in order,” answered the new friend. “I never knew another girl who could.”
“That’s ground into me by experience. But I hate sewing. I’m not a good cook and I can’t draw or paint or play the piano. We met a girl this summer who has been brought up in a cabin on the mountain and has never been to school in her life, who knows a lot more than I do.”
Billie told what little she knew of the strange history of Phoebe.
“It would make a wonderful story,” observed Maggie. “I should like to put it into a book.”
“Do you write, too?” asked Billie eagerly.
Maggie blinked her dark, bright eyes.