Jerry looked disappointed.
“I think you are rather unfair, Charlotte,” he said. “If she wasn’t nice you’d say she was spoilt and selfish, and as she is nice you say it’s no credit to her. How can you tell that it isn’t very difficult to be nice and kind to others when one has everything one wants oneself? Papa says it is very difficult indeed not to get spoilt when one’s like that.”
“I’d like to be tried,” said Charlotte.
“Besides,” pursued Jerry, “do you know I’m not quite sure that she has everything the way we fancied.”
Charlotte looked up eagerly.
“What do you mean?” she said. “What can there be that she hasn’t got? We know she’s very rich and clever and pretty; that’s a good deal, any way.”
“But I’m almost sure she has to be away from the people she loves most,” said Jerry; “I know it by some things she said. And I could tell by her ways that she’s used to brothers and sisters—I fancy there’s a lot of them.”
“She is rather to be pitied for that,” said Charlotte half-laughingly, “though it can’t be so bad when people are rich. And then as Lady Mildred has adopted her what can it matter?”
“I shouldn’t like to be adopted away from you all, however grand and rich I was to be,” said Jerry, “and I don’t believe you’d like it either, whatever you say. You make yourself out worse than you are, Charlotte.”
“Well, read the letter,” she said, and Jerry did so. As he gave it back to Charlotte he grew rather red.