Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time; at least, not lately.”
Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s lips.
“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and you took long walks together and things like that. I believe Miss Winthrop is really fond of you, Olive, even more than she is of Jean and me. I wonder why?”
At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she thinks Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of course you and I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I hope, Olive dear, that she was good to you.”
And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly flushed scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better than any one else in the world except you ranch girls,” she replied.
Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression, Jean’s own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she have been so unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a sudden flash of illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something important on your mind that you want to tell us. I might have guessed that you have been keeping it a secret ever since we returned, letting us chat all this nonsense about our visits first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss Winthrop wants to adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented, or none of us will ever forgive you in this world!”
Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you yet,” she murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen different ways of starting in the last two days.”
“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda darkly. “I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us for having left you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas holidays. Of course Miss Winthrop decided that we really do not care much for you and for all her coldness to the other girls she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just crazy about you, Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But whether you like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have believed that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.
“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want to tell you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with her if you should ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I don’t want to live with her if you ranch girls want me. I was only trying to explain——”
“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as white and shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty in making her confession.