"I don't know what you are talking about, Jeanette. Certainly there is no reason why mother should not trust you! I don't see what trust has to do with the fact that she took a great fancy to you when she met you the other afternoon and wants to see more of you. She did not say this, but I have an idea that she is interested in having you near her so as to know you better. Besides, I'll be glad to cast some of the entertaining business on you. Two or three people have turned up already and mother is hoping we may be able to move into your house this week."
"Do you mean your mother has friends with her now? Must I meet them as well? I don't know what is the matter, I never used to be embarrassed and shall try not to be to-day."
Jeanette straightened her shoulders, threw back her head and the color she had lost a moment before returned.
After all, she was relieved. Cecil could know nothing of her mistake (Jeanette preferred to think of what she had done as a mistake) else would he have answered as he had? And had his answer been different, would she have confessed?
Seeing a group of strangers standing on the veranda of their big house, Jeanette stifled a sensation of resentment. Already they appeared as if they were in actual possession of her home. Personally she had no feeling of sentiment for the Rainbow Lodge. The old house seemed to her small and weather-beaten and unattractive after their splendid, big home. It was natural, perhaps, that her father and stepmother should feel an attachment for the lodge, as they had known it so long, but why should Lina and Via pretend to care for it? The answer, of course, was that the other girls were under their stepmother's influence.
Jeanette hoped her father would soon recover his fortunes sufficiently to be able to return to the big house. She wished this notwithstanding the fact that she expected to be in the East at school. No thought of relinquishing her intention had occurred to Jeanette. She was merely awaiting a more fortunate moment. Jeanette felt the same pleasurable sense of attraction she had experienced at their original meeting, when Mrs. Perry, separating herself from her friends, took hold of her hand.
A moment after she found herself being introduced to Mr. and Mrs. John Barret and to a girl and boy near her own age.
As a matter of fact, Margery Barret was a year older than Jeanette, and her brother a little more than two years older.
Scarcely could Jeanette restrain an exclamation of satisfaction over their meeting. No one could understand how she had been longing to acquire new friends outside her own environment.
Margery and Mason Barret were from New York and had been traveling with their mother and father in the West for their summer vacation. For this reason they had been able to arrive sooner at the Rainbow Ranch than Mrs. Perry's other friends.