“Why did you bring Mademoiselle to Marshlands? We don’t care for Mademoiselle, do we, Pauline?”
“No, indeed,” said Pauline, “and she took my hand yesterday and clutched it so tight and wouldn’t let it go before I pulled two or three times, and oh! I’m quite positive sure that she’ll find us out, and I wish she wouldn’t!”
“Frankly, I wish she wouldn’t too,” said Honora, “but I do not see,” she added, “why Penelope should be disturbed on that account—it isn’t her fault.”
“No, indeed it isn’t,” said Penelope, “and I wish with all my heart she hadn’t come with me to Marshlands-on-the-Sea.”
When breakfast was over, all the young people streamed out into the gardens with the exception of Honora and Penelope.
“One minute, Penelope dear,” said Honora. “Just write a little line to your sister and I will enclose one, in mother’s name and mine, inviting her to come up with the children to-morrow. Here are writing materials—you needn’t take a minute.”
Penelope sat down and wrote a few words to Brenda. For the life of her, she could not make these words cordial. She hardly knew her own sensations. Was she addressing the same Brenda whom she had worshipped and suffered for and loved so frantically when she was a little girl? Was it jealousy that was stealing into her heart? What could be her motives in wishing to keep this sister from the nice boys and girls who made Castle Beverley so charming? Or was she—was she so mean—so small—as to be ashamed of Brenda? No, no—it could not be that, and yet—and yet—it was that: she was ashamed of Brenda! The children she was now with belonged to the best of their kind. Penelope had lived with people of the better class for several months now and was discerning enough to perceive the difference between gold and tinsel. Oh, was Brenda tinsel; Brenda—her only sister? Penelope could have sobbed, but she must hide all emotion.
Her letter was finished. She knew how eagerly Brenda would accept and how cleverly she would get herself invited to the Castle again, and again, and again. Honora’s cordial little note was slipped into the same envelope. Penelope had to furnish the address, and, an hour later, Fred and his brothers, who were going to ride to Marshlands in order to bathe and to spend some hours afterwards on the beach, arranged to convey the invitation to Brenda which poor Penelope so dreaded.
“Now we have that off our minds,” said Honora, “and can have a real good time. What would you like to do, Penelope? You know you must make yourself absolutely and completely at home. You are one of us. Every girl who comes here by mother’s invitation is for the time mother’s own daughter and looked upon as such by her. She is also father’s own daughter and, I can tell you, he treats her as such, and the boys are exactly in the same position. We’re all brothers and sisters here, and we love each other, every one of us.”
“But would you love a girl, whatever happened?” asked Penelope, all of a sudden.