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think he told her that I was the daughter of a poet, because she looked at me like that though he had promised not to and I hate to think he broke his promise. She has very interesting things in her house that she has picked up from all over the Cape as she gave her music lessons. I guess she does not have many pupils now but Aunt Achsa said Letty Vine would have to die in the harness so that is probably why she keeps going.

“Sixth is Mr. Commander Nelson at the Coast Guard Station who invited me to come to see him again. He said if he needed a hand at any time he’d send for me. It would be exciting to help save souls from a wreck at sea. I would like to even see one though that sounds wicked and I must curb my thirst for adventure.

“Jed Starrows is not an acquaintance but I intend to know more about him. When anyone speaks of him they put such a funny tone in their voices. I asked Mr. Dugald if he is aristocratic too and he laughed and said he most certainly is not. But he owns a big boat—an auxiliary schooner that is the fastest one here and he has just bought out a fish company and Aunt Achsa says it beats everything where he gets his money because he wasn’t much more than a common clam-digger a year or so ago. But I will record here that Captain Davies spoke of Jed Starrows as though he might know something about pirates and I mean to find out if I can.

“Enough now, dear friend—my arm aches and I must stop. Adieu for the nonce—”

CHAPTER X
 
MAIDS

And later Sidney wrote the following letter to her sisters.

“Dear Family:

“I have not written before because everything is so marvellously exciting. My telegram told you that I had arrived safely at Cousin Achsa’s. The hours of my journey, all too short, sped on wings of happiness. Thus they are still speeding. This is the loveliest and the unusualest place and it is filled with quaint homes and the most interesting people. Our relatives are among the most aristocratic and Aunt Achsa, she wants me to call her that, is of the proudest blood of Cape Cod. She is very nice to me and asks a great many questions about you all and about our mother. She has a nephew who lives here who is only a year older than I am. And a family friend of Aunt Achsa’s lives here summers and he takes Lavender (which is our cousin’s name) and me out on a big boat which is most exciting.

“There is a girl about my own age who lives right next door and I think we will be very good friends. She is not at all like Nancy which I am glad as variety is the sauce of living. She is of pure Cape Cod blood, too.

“If I do not write often and only very little letters it is because I’m so busy, for I must make the most of every minute. I wish you would write to me an awful lot though and please send all of Vick’s letters to me so that I will know what she’s doing just as though I was home, and Trude, you write every day. And when you write to Vick tell her that I am having the most wonderful time. Be sure to do that. Loads and loads of love,

“Your sister, Sidney.”

Kneeling against a half-packed trunk, Trude read Sidney’s letter aloud to Isolde. Victoria had gone the day before.

“What do you think?” Trude asked, slowly, as she finished.

“Think? What do you mean? I’m glad the child’s there safe and happy.”

“But, Issy, that letter doesn’t ring just—true. I know how Sid usually writes and talks. It’s too brief and there’s something, well—forced about it.”

Isolde put down a box of papers she had been sorting over. Her conscience had troubled her not a little at letting Sidney go off alone among strangers, even though they were relatives, and now Trude’s doubts sharpened the pricks.

“Forced? I didn’t notice it. It was short, of course, but probably she is having too good a time to write a longer letter. Anyway, Trude, she’s there safe, and we’re almost packed and our tickets are bought—it isn’t going to do anyone a bit of good, now, to upset all our plans and bring Sid home. That’s the way I look at it. And she would have been perfectly wretched here with the League Convention filling the house. It’s dreadful to contemplate.”

“I can’t bear to think of Sid going out on boats with a harum-scarum boy—” Trude groaned.

“I don’t feel half as concerned over the boats as I do wondering if living there in luxury may not spoil her for her own poor home—make her dissatisfied. She is probably meeting all the wealthy summer people—there are a lot on the Cape, you know.”

Trude was still studying the letter as though to find something between the written lines.

“She wants me to write every day. That sounds a little homesicky. Well, I will, bless the kid’s heart—no matter how rushed I am. And I will warn her in every letter to be careful around the boats. And not to get her head turned by our relatives’ high estate, either. Isn’t it funny, Issy, that we never knew they were wealthy—until now? Not that it would have made a bit of difference with Mother or Dad,” she finished, defensively.

Isolde, her conscience quieted for the hundreth time, turned her attention to her box. She lifted out a small packet of letters tied together and handed them to Trude.

“These are yours.”

One slipped from the packet and fell to the floor between the two girls. Trude picked it up quickly, a deep crimson sweeping her face.

“Why, it’s one of those letters—” exclaimed Isolde, accusingly.

Trude nodded, guiltily. “I know it. I—I couldn’t bear to destroy them all.”

“Trude, dear, you don’t care anything about that man—now?”

Trude forced a light laugh but her eyes avoided Isolde’s searching glance. “Why, no—at least not in that way. If you like things in a person very much you just have to keep on liking them no matter what happens. And, Issy, it wasn’t his fault that I—I imagined—he cared—for me—” Her voice broke. Isolde gave a quick little cry.

“Trude, you do care! And he isn’t worth the tiniest heartache. He must have led you on to think things. And all the time he was playing with you. It makes me furious! You’re such an old peach.”

The “old peach” made no answer. There flashed across her mind all that Isolde had had to say before about this man; every fibre of her being shrank from a repetition that would bring pain as well as humiliation. She straightened.

“We are a couple of geese to dig all this up now. I was just sentimental enough to hang on to one of the letters—I suppose it’s because they are the only letters I’ve ever had from a man—but I see my mistake now. I will destroy it.” She slipped the letter into her pocket with the tiniest sigh. “So there.” (But the letter was not destroyed.)

“I wish you’d meet someone down at the Whites’—some perfectly grand man. I should think Uncle Jasper would realize—”

Isolde’s tone was so tragic that Trude laughed, now with genuine amusement. “I was thinking of some of Uncle Jasper’s friends,” she explained. “They are mostly nice, fat settled bankers and lawyers, but if any bachelor doctors, tinkers or tailors slip in I promise to flirt desperately—”

“Trude, you think I am joking and I am not. If you don’t meet someone at the Whites’ where will you meet him? What chance have you and I, shut up here, to know the kind of men we’d—we’d like to know? Do you think I enjoy the namby-pamby sort that flock here to sit in Dad’s chair? No, indeed. And Trude—I’m—twenty-six next October! I’m—an old maid!

Before Isolde’s earnestness Trude unknowingly lowered her voice to a soft note. “Do you feel like that, too, Issy? I’ve felt that way often. I’m twenty-four. But I’m not afraid of being an old maid—I’ve always sort of known I’d be one—but I catch myself just longing to do something with my life, different—as little Sid put it. Then I chastise myself severely for my repinings. Anyway, it’ll be fun watching Vick’s and Sid’s experiences, won’t it? Bless them, they seem to have escaped our bounds, don’t they?”

“I am afraid my vicarious enjoyment of their adventures may be tempered with a little jealousy. I am not as noble as you are, Trude. It is hard to think that you and I have to go on sitting still and watching our lives go by—and our one and only life, remember!”

Trude shook herself a little—perhaps she was “chastising” her inner spirit. “Come, we mustn’t get mopey on the eve of a holiday. They’re too rare to spoil. And two trunks still to pack. Do you think the Leaguers will mind if we shroud that painting in the living-room. It’s the best thing we own and I hate to have it get too dusty.”

Isolde lifted her shoulders rebelliously. “I don’t know what has happened to me but, do you know, Trude, I am beginning to think it’s the limit that we have to consider the League in even a little thing like that. Thank goodness we are going to have a holiday! But I wonder if the summer will bring anything to any of us.”

In answer Trude smiled down into the trunk. “Well—it’s bringing something to Sid. Rather she went out and got it. And it surely will to Vick, new clothes if nothing more. And I hope it will to you, too, Issy, dear, something grand and—contenting.”

It was typical of Trude that she did not think of herself.

CHAPTER XI
 
INDEPENDENCE

“Golly day, but I’m tired!”

Martie Calkins threw herself on the cool sand of the beach and gave vent to a long breath. Sidney, standing over her, wished she could do likewise with the same picturesque abandon. Mart was so splendidly “I don’t care a hang”; her tumbled hair now was thick with sand, across her tanned face was a smear of black, her shabby blouse was torn and open at the throat exposing her chest to the hot sun, her bare, hard-muscled legs were outstretched, the heels digging into the sand and the grimy toes separating and curling like the tentacles of a crab.

“Oh, this is the life,” she sang. “Sit down and make yourself at home. This beach’s yours as much as mine I guess.”

Sidney sat down quickly lest her companion guess how she was tied inside with the innumerable bonds and knots of conventions, century old, which Martie had somehow escaped. Of course Sidney herself did not think it that way; she only knew that she felt ridiculously awkward with Martie Calkins in spite of her growing determination to be just like her.

They had been friends now for two whole weeks, the shortest two weeks Sidney had ever known simply because into them they had crowded so much. She had met Mart the day after her coming to Sunset Lane. Mart had appeared at Aunt Achsa’s with some baking soda her grandmother had borrowed two months before. Aunt Achsa had said: “I cal’late you two girls better make friends.” That was so obviously sensible that Sidney quickly put from her the impression that Mart was the “queerest” girl she had ever met. She had seen queerer but had never talked to them. But Mart was young and frankly friendly and lived next

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