On this particular occasion Frieda had unfortunately neglected to attire herself for the rôle which she was about to play, as she happened to be wearing an old blue and white middy blouse and a short duck skirt with one long plait hanging over each shoulder.
"I wonder," she began at this moment, though no one chanced to be looking toward her, "which one of us will finally fall heir to this grand new house we are building? I have just been thinking, houses are not like clothes, meant for one person and to last through one or two seasons: they may last through many generations and no telling what changes in a family."
"Hear! Hear!" cried Jean, straightway whirling around to regard her cousin with astonishment and then striking an attitude of mock admiration. "Listen, everybody, please, Frieda is making a speech! She wants to know which of us shall become the royal family of Rainbow Castle. It is an interesting question, dear; I never should have thought it of you!"
Frieda hesitated, but the next instant went on quite seriously. "Of course it won't be you though, Jean, because of all of us, Ruth, Olive, Jim, and Jack and me, why I think you love the Rainbow ranch the least. You will never want to stay on in the West once you are married; that visit you made the Princess Colonna in Rome has completely spoiled you."
And now it was Jean's turn to endure the family laughter, and though she made no reply, she showed more annoyance than the accusation merited.
Still surprisingly thoughtful, Frieda continued: "I suppose that either Jim or Jack and their children ought to inherit the new house, for of course I am the youngest and have done nothing toward making the ranch a success as Jim and Jack have. Ruth, you and Jim would want Jack to have the place after she marries and has children, wouldn't you? And yet not long ago, do you know, I believed that in spite of loving the ranch best, Jack would be the first one of us to leave it for good. I don't think so now," she added hastily, catching an expression on her sister's face that she could not altogether understand.
But by this time Jack had marched across the room and was gently but firmly pulling Frieda down from her exalted position.
"I suppose hearing the news of old Madame Van Mater's will has gone to your head, Frieda darling," Jack protested. "But really no one of us wants to hear you arranging our futures and talking about our descendants, as if fifty years might suddenly pass away before tea time. Of course 'Rainbow Castle,' as Jean calls our new home, shall belong to the one of us who wishes it and needs it the most. But which of us that may be—well, in the words of Mr. William Shakespeare, 'that is the question.'"
Jack now turned to her cousin, Jean, who was standing before one of the unfinished windows looking out at the beautiful view. For the prospect from the new house was far lovelier than any outlook from Rainbow Lodge, since it stood on a higher incline and showed a wider sweep of the prairies.
"Jean," Jack asked, "I wonder if you happen to know where Ralph Merrit is? There is something Jim and I want particularly to talk over with him. I happened to notice he was with you last. Did he say whether he was going to have dinner with us tonight or with the men at the Ranch House?"