Here was a photograph of her own stepmother, then Jacqueline Ralston, mounted on her pony. Here was another, standing at the edge of the Rainbow Mine, the origin of their fortune.
In another group were Jacqueline and Frieda Ralston, Olive in an Indian costume, taken soon after her discovery by the Ranch Girls and her arrival at the ranch, Jean, who was their cousin and adopted sister.
As this especial group picture was faded almost past recognition, after staring at it, Lina slowly tore it off the wall, tossing it aside into a waste-paper basket. She and Eda were to occupy this bedroom. The lodge was not large enough to allow each member of the family a separate room. Not pleased with the prospect, she and the other girls were accepting it as a part of their sacrifice. Via and Jeanette were to be together.
At present Lina could hear Jeanette moving about in the room adjoining her own. Her stepmother was to occupy the room which had been hers as a girl. At the present moment she was downstairs in the old living-room of the lodge, seeing that it was put in order.
As a matter of fact Jack was actually standing before the big, old-fashioned fireplace, with her hands thrust into the pockets of her corduroy coat. Her eyes were filled with tears.
It was not easy coming back to the old lodge where she had lived as a girl with a family of half-grown daughters, who were not really her own.
These first weeks and months of making friends with her stepdaughters in her new relation to them, Jack had found as difficult as any in her career. So far as Lina and Via were concerned, she was no longer nervous or overanxious. She was devoted to them and they seemed to care for her. Via's health was not so strong as it should have been and a matter of worry to her family, but there was no immediate cause for unhappiness.
Eda was still a child with a little half-wild streak in her, part shyness and oddly fascinating. The time would surely come when she and Eda would be drawn close together.
Jeanette was the problem. If she had been difficult from the beginning, she was more a problem now.
What troubled Jack at this instant, however, was not Jeanette's weakness or faults of character, but her own. From the outset she had not resented Jeanette's antagonism toward her, understanding and hoping in time to overcome it. Since the day of their riding contest, she realized that she could no longer like Jeanette. Probably she could not be fair to her.