Jaquelina washed the dishes, and while Mrs. Meredith sat by the cradle with her knitting, the girl took her book and sat down on the doorstep to read.
Half an hour went by quietly. The hum of the bees and the warble of the birds were all that broke the silence, save the low whisper of the wind as it sighed among the trees.
Jaquelina enjoyed the silence thoroughly, every moment dreading to hear the fretful wail of her aunt's baby, and to be summoned to tend it again.
But lifting her head at last, as she turned a page, she saw a lady crossing the narrow foot-bridge that spanned the brook.
"Aunt Meredith," she said, turning her head toward the sitting-room, "there's company coming."
Mrs. Meredith whisked off her kitchen apron, slipped a white ruffled one over her dark print dress, and appeared at the door just in time to hear a musical voice saying, kindly:
"Good-afternoon, Lina—ah, good-afternoon, Mrs. Meredith."
[CHAPTER II.]
The new-comer was Violet Earle, a girl scarcely older than Jaquelina, but taller, better dressed, and exquisitely lovely. She was fair as a lily, with soft, languishing blue eyes, and golden curls falling in beautiful luxuriance upon her graceful shoulders.