Like the hero of the old music hall song, Jacqueline felt that “now was the time for disappearing.” I wish I could say to her credit that she fled, simply because she was afraid that if she came face to face with Cousin Penelope, she would be tempted beyond her strength and withdraw the promise she had so impulsively made to Caroline. As a matter of fact, I suspect that she ran away, because she had had enough drama with Aunt Martha and Caroline to satisfy even her drama-loving soul for at least one day. At any rate, she dove out of the garden through the narrow gap in the hedge, like a scared and nimble rabbit, and Caroline was left to face alone the onslaught of Cousin Penelope.

Of course Caroline ought to have been just as noble as Jacqueline. She ought to have called Jacqueline back, and presented her to Cousin Penelope as her really, truly little kinswoman, and then for her own part subsided gracefully into the company of the cows and the awful boy-cousins, just as Tom Canty was willing to go back to rags and dirt and misery.

But Caroline thought of the party, and the darling little doll-favors. Sweet little Watteau gowns they wore, of figured silk, with their powdered hair piled high and topped with wee, beribboned hats of straw that would have turned a fairy green with envy. Caroline thought, too, of the look that would come into Cousin Penelope’s pale, stern face, when she knew that it was upon a little cheat that she had wasted kindness, and music lessons, and dentistry! No, Caroline hadn’t the courage to tell the truth. She just stood there, dumb and trembling, while Cousin Penelope bore down upon her.

“Jacqueline!” Cousin Penelope’s voice, as she spoke to Caroline, was sharp with what an older person would have recognized as anxiety. “Who was that child you were talking with?”

Mercy, what a chance to tell the truth—the whole dramatic truth—in a dramatic manner! But Caroline, like Jacqueline on several occasions, told half a truth which, like many a half-truth, was as deceptive as a good, big whopper.

“A—a little girl,” she stammered. “She lives down in the Meadows.”

Through the dusk she could almost feel Cousin Penelope bristle, like a lady-dog when rough strangers come too near her precious young.

“That bold, forward Conway child? Of all the audacity! What brought her prowling into our garden?”

“She—she wanted to—see me,” faltered Caroline.

“To see you!” echoed Cousin Penelope. “Why should she dream of associating with you, Jacqueline?”

Bewildered and badgered, Caroline knew that she must say something.

“We—we were on the train—coming from Chicago,” she said in a voice that see-sawed, though she tried hard to keep it steady. “We played together—with Mildred. Oh, she’s a nice little girl, Cousin Penelope, honest, she is—you’d like her—she’s nicer than me—ever so much so!”

She had thought she hadn’t a tear left in her, but now she began to cry again, not noisily, but in soft little tired gasps. Oh, how was it that clinging heroines in books always managed to swoon? She wished that she could swoon, then and there, and so escape from everything. She couldn’t bear to have Cousin Penelope ask her even one more question.

But Cousin Penelope stopped questioning. Amazingly she put her arm round Caroline’s tense little shoulders, and dabbed her eyes gently with her filmy handkerchief, which smelt like a breeze over beds of violets.

“There, there!” she said. “You mustn’t make your eyes red, on the night before your party. You must have forgotten the party.”

Forgotten the party! If only Cousin Penelope guessed!

They went back together through the dusky, fragrant garden. Cousin Penelope urged Caroline to look at the little pale stars, which were coming out now almost as fast as you could count them in the sky, that was the color of tarnished old silver.

“It will be a fine day to-morrow,” Penelope told Caroline. “You don’t realize, you little Californian, how we have to study the sky, here in New England, when we plan to give a garden-party.”

Then she talked about the dress that Caroline should wear at the party, and the way in which the flowers should be arranged on the table. She was talking to take Caroline’s mind off the scene with the rude little girl from the Conway farm. Caroline saw through her strategy, but she was grateful to her, just the same. She only hoped that Aunt Eunice wouldn’t see her red eyes, and have to be told about what had happened in the garden.

Better than Caroline had dared to hope, they found Aunt Eunice seated on the wide, cool porch, where it was now too dark for features to be distinguished.

“This little girl is running up to bed,” said Cousin Penelope blithely. “We must get our beauty sleep before the party.”

Thankful for this way of escape, Caroline kissed Aunt Eunice good-night and trotted upstairs, to bathe her face and her smarting eyes. How good it was that Aunt Eunice didn’t suspect!

At that moment Aunt Eunice, on the dim, cool porch, was saying in a troubled voice:

“What’s wrong, Penelope? The little thing had been crying. Her cheeks were quite wet. She isn’t—homesick?”

“Not in the least!” replied Penelope, in a crisp voice that defied the whole tribe of Delanes and the entire state of California. “Why should she be homesick, here with us?”

“What was she crying about?”

“Such an annoying little incident, Mother. A child that is staying at the Conways’ scraped acquaintance with Jacqueline on the train and has been trying to force herself upon her ever since. I found her just now with Jacqueline in the garden. She ran away, you may be sure, as soon as I appeared.”

“A child from the Meadows?” exclaimed Aunt Eunice. “Why, she is ever so far from home, and it’s dark.”

Penelope didn’t seem to think that fact of any importance.

“Poor little Jacqueline is too young to know how to handle such an awkward situation,” she went on. “She’s Gildersleeve through and through, Mother. Loyal and affectionate. You should have heard her stand up for the horrid little pushing creature, because she thought her a friend. I must find some way myself to put a stop to such intrusions. I wonder if I’d better speak to the Conway woman? She seems very sensible.”

“Martha Conway is the salt of the earth,” said Aunt Eunice, with conviction. “You ought to know, Penelope. You went to public school with her once upon a time. After all, why shouldn’t this child come play with Jacqueline?”

Penelope spoke loftily, as she occasionally did speak to her mother.

“Now, Mother dearest, just for the sake of your democratic theories we can’t let Jack’s daughter associate with every common child that pushes itself forward. Blood will tell, you know.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Eunice, with mild persistence, “but what’s wrong with the Conway blood, Penelope? Conways and Gildersleeves and Holdens and Taits and Trowbridges, they all came here together in the old days—God-fearing farmer-folk, the lot of them, and not much to choose among them, though some have prospered lately more than others.”

Penelope became indulgent. There wasn’t much else for her to do, if she was to retire gracefully from the argument.

“You’re a darling old radical, Mother,” she said. “It’s fortunate that I am here to protect Jacqueline.”

Aunt Eunice sighed. She frequently did sigh at the end of one of her conversations with Penelope that never seemed to get them anywhere. She rose to her feet and gathered up her thin scarf of silk.

“I think I’ll go up to my room,” she said. “I’ve a telephone call to send.”

So Penelope was left alone, victorious, if you please to call it so. She wasn’t quite sure. Indeed, to herself she said:

“Mother is provoking. If she really is going to take that view of the case, I must act with decision. For, mother or no mother, I’m going to head off any acquaintance between Jacqueline and that rough child from the Meadows, even if I have to alter all our summer plans to do it.”