She had no opportunity to reply, merely to receive the gift, since at this instant she heard her father coming toward them.
"See here, Cecil, you are not to absorb Jeanette's society at the last like this! A man wants a chance at his own daughter now and then."
"I don't feel like leaving home, father. Suppose I give up and stay here and take charge of the ranch this winter?" Jeanette demanded, half joking, half in earnest, and holding tight to her father.
She looked and felt like a very small girl at this instant, boarding school, which had been a long dream, now appearing as a kind of impossible nightmare.
Mrs. Colter and Eda joined them.
Not far away sounded the whistle of the approaching train.
Jeanette seized her stepmother's free hand.
"You'll take good care of father and the girls and the ranch? And you will forgive my being so, so abominable?" she pleaded. "I do admire and like you ever so much now—I mean really, as if you were not a member of the family."
This speech did not sound graceful or what she had intended to say and Jeanette paused. She had the uncomfortable impression that there would not be time to explain.
She and her stepmother had never kissed each other during their entire acquaintance. If this was unusual, it was because their temperaments were in many ways alike. Save with the people to whom they were deeply devoted demonstration was difficult.