"This is Margery Scollard, Serena," she said. "Here is our little girl, Margery. No, don't make Margery a dancing-school curtsey, dear; you are to be good friends, so you need not begin with a stiff curtsey."
Margery leaned forward, smiling, but did not speak. The soft color in her cheeks, the warm light in her eyes, her youth and loveliness begged little Serena not to be shy, but to trust her. The child looked up at Margery with great gray eyes, and her pale face flushed. She was so ethereal, so dainty, so altogether fine and frail that Margery felt as though she were hardly a child of common clay.
"Grandma said we were to be friends; will you, Serena? Will you like me a little bit?" said Margery softly.
Serena hesitated, and then smiled. "I'll be friends," she said, and clambered up on the chair beside Margery to prove her sincerity.
When the time came for the child to dance she danced more beautifully than any other child there. Penny lost her heart to her at once, and went around after her like a happy, healthy little mortal following a stray visitor from fairyland. Serena shrank from Penny at first, but she had quite lost her heart to pretty Margery, and when she found the two were sisters she vouchsafed to tolerate Penny, to that merry little soul's humble delight.
A voice in Margery's ear said: "Well, isn't she all that I told you?"
She looked up to see Mrs. Jones-Dexter unexpectedly at her elbow.
"She is much more than any one could describe," said Margery, so fervently that the doting grandmother was satisfied.