[Frontispiece: She jumped and looked up and directly into the grey
eyes of the mysterious boy. (_See Page 68_)]
JANET
A TWIN
BY
DOROTHY WHITEHILL
ILLUSTRATED BY
THELMA GOOCH
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1920,
by
BARSE & CO.
MADE IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I A Glimpse of Janet
II On the Widows' Wale
III Mrs. Todd Intervenes
IV Janet's Kingdom
V Nor Like Other Girls
VI The Fair
VII A Stranger in the Kingdom
VIII Under Arrest
IX The Mysterious Owner
X Peter
XI Another Letter
XII Janet's Passenger
XIII The Greatest Surprise in the World
XIV A Long Day
XV The Day at Last
XVI A Day Together
XVII At The Rectory for Tea
XVIII A Full Cup of Happiness
XIX Twins Indeed
XX Good-By
XXI Conclusion
ILLUSTRATIONS
She jumped and looked up and directly into the gray eyes of the
mysterious boy ... _Frontispiece_
For a long minute there was silence, and then Mrs. Page did something
she was rarely ever seen to do; she smiled
"You're not teasing me, are you?" she asked, and her voice trembled
A keen observer might have thought it odd that he chose the blue
chiffon dress to rub against instead of the white one
JANET, A TWIN
CHAPTER I
A GLIMPSE OF JANET
It was an every-day sort of a looking road, broad and dusty and flat.
It ran straight across the landscape and ended abruptly in a merger
of blue sky and sparkling sea. On either side of it sandy soil
dotted with clusters of dwarfed scrub oaks stretched out into
limitless space. There was an uninteresting sameness about its sunny
dustiness that discouraged all hope of adventure.
But on a late September afternoon it was the setting of a little
scene that marked the turning place in the life of Janet Page.
The drowsy quiet was broken first by the short, excited bark of a
dog, a crackle of leaves and a snapping of twigs in the scrub oak,
and then several things happened in quick succession.
A long snake scuttled into the road, a wiry little Irish terrier
bounded after it, followed by a whirling fury of starched petticoats,
long slender legs and an immense red bow.
This was Janet.
A tiny cloud of dust curtained them all for a minute; when it
settled, it disclosed a rigid tableau. Janet held the dog's collar
in one strong little brown hand, and with the other and the aid of
one foot she grasped the snake.
"Do something!" she demanded excitedly, as she turned angry eyes
toward a fat, roly-poly figure that still remained partially hidden
by the scrub oak, watching the scene with an expression of fear and
distaste in his pale blue eyes.
This was Harry Waters.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked sulkily.
Janet was too much occupied to look at him, but her voice expressed
the contempt she felt.
"You might take Boru," she suggested.
Harry made a wide detour and, snatching the dog, retreated hurriedly
back to the side of the road.
"You're not going to kill him," he said nervously, and he pointed a
trembling finger at the wriggling snake.
For answer, Janet picked up a large stone. Harry turned his face
away. He wanted to put his fingers in his ears so that he would not
hear the soft thud that followed, but the frantic dog made that
impossible.
"Come on back," Janet said at last; "he's quite dead, and I've thrown
him into the bushes, so you won't even have to look at him." Her
voice sounded very grown up and patronizing, and Harry justly
resented it.
"Now look here, Janet Page," he exploded; "you needn't put on airs.
It's not such a big thing to kill a snake anyway," he finished
lamely. "I could have done it only I didn't see any sense in it;
even if it had bitten Boru, it wouldn't have hurt him any." Harry
was trying hard to justify an act that he hardly understood himself.
He was a nice boy, two years Janet's senior, and until to-day he had
never let her forget his advantage.
He tried to assert it now.
"You see, I'm older than you are and I've got lots more sense. I
knew that a snake like that couldn't really hurt a dog and so I
just--" He paused, and under Janet's cool gaze he blushed very
slowly, right up to the roots of his hair.
"Why don't you tell the truth?" she asked quietly. "You know you are
afraid of snakes."
"Well, what if I am?" Harry shifted his feet uncomfortably. "I
can't help it, can I? Anyway, your grandmother says--"
"Never mind what my grandmother says," Janet interrupted angrily. "I
know it all by heart. She says you are a very mannerly little boy;
that's because you never forget to take off your hat when you go into
her room. And she says you're respectful; that's because you always
say 'yes, ma'm; no ma'm; thank you, ma'm,' and she says you always
look tidy, and that's because you never climb trees and always wear
shoes and stockings, no matter how hot it is, and--"
"Can't help it if my mother makes me, can I?" Harry blazed out.
Janet paused to consider.
"No, I don't suppose you can," she said at last; "only somehow I wish
you were different." Her gaze traveled slowly from his round-toed
boots to his neatly brushed hair; a dreamy look came into her eyes,
and the little flecks of gold in the soft-brown iris caught the sun's
rays and glistened. She sighed profoundly.
"But if you couldn't kill a snake," she said, speaking more to
herself than to him, "why, you couldn't ever kill a dragon, you see;
nor ride a coal-black charger, nor fight for your lady's favor--"
Her brow wrinkled in a puzzled frown, but it cleared almost at once.
"I was forgetting," she laughed; "you wouldn't want to anyway, so it
doesn't matter; that is, not so very much."
She looked around her for Boru; he was busily investigating the
remains of the snake in the bushes, but at her whistle he trotted
obediently to her heel, and together they walked off down the road.
Harry, after a miserable minute of indecision, followed.
They walked in silence, Janet a little ahead, until they reached the
road that ran along the waterfront and passed the white gate of the
old Page house.
"Aren't you going to go with me any more!" Harry asked forlornly.
Janet stopped and looked at him.
"Maybe."
"When?"
"Don't know."
"Well, I don't care if you don't; you're just a girl anyway."
Harry's lip trembled ever so slightly and he turned on his heel and
hurried off, trying to hold his head high.
Janet swung on the gate for a few minutes and watched him until a
bend in the road hid him from view, then she went up the long flight
of stone steps.
The Page house crowned the terrace above. It was big, somber and
very old. To Janet it seemed to be very tired, too, as though it had
waited and watched a long time for the sea, whose waves beat
incessantly on the shore below, to yield some secret now long
forgotten by the living world.
Four stern columns guarded the square porch and the old-fashioned,
ivory-white door with its leaded fan lights and heavy knocker. Janet
slipped noiselessly into the wide hall that reflected the glow of
polished mahogany and soft afternoon sunlight. Just as she tiptoed
across the thick rag rugs and was half way up the stairs, the big
grandfather clock boomed three, and as if in echo to it a voice,
quavering but still clear and penetrating, called:
"Is that you, Janet?"
Janet had a sudden and unheard of wish not to answer, but she
conquered it and replied at once:
"Yes, grandmother, it's me." Before the words had had time to float
down the stairs she was conscious of her mistake. "Drat the personal
pronoun anyway," she said to herself; "now I will catch it."
"Janet, I called you," the voice came again, and Janet started
guiltily.
"I'm coming, grandmother," she answered, and walked primly back
downstairs.
Mrs. Page's room was on the first floor at the back of the house away
from the sea and overlooking a trim little garden. An old-fashioned
sleigh bed stood between the windows, and in the very middle of it a
little old lady, wearing an immense cap, sat propped up against half
a dozen pillows.
This was Mrs. Page, Janet's grandmother. She was perhaps the most
feared and certainly the most respected woman in Old Chester, and
although she had been bedridden for as many years as Janet could
remember she took a lively interest in the affairs of the community,
and no important step was ever taken until Cap'n Page's widow was
consulted. Her advice had a way of sounding very much like a command.
Janet knew the room by heart. She could have told the location of
everything in it with her eyes blindfolded, so she wasted no time in
looking about her but went straight up to the bed and sat down on the
low chair, where all Mrs. Page's callers sat. It was placed so that
she could see them without twisting her neck; a thing she
particularly disliked having to do.
"You called me, grandmother?"
Two steely blue eyes opened slowly, and seemed to bore into the soft
depth of Janet's brown ones.
"I did; there can be no doubt of that; nor, I may add, of your reply."
For perhaps the first time in her life Janet interrupted her.
"I know I said me instead of I, but I was thinking of something else
and I forgot," she exclaimed impatiently.
"And may I ask what you were thinking of?" Mrs. Page inquired in
surprise.
Janet frowned and shook her head. "It's not the slightest use to,
for you'd never, never understand. You see, it was something
entirely different from all this." She looked around the immaculate
room and shook her head again, this time in despair.
Mrs. Page lifted herself on to one elbow and looked at her
grand-daughter carefully for a full minute.
"Janet," she said severely, "what has come over you?"
There was a long pause, for Janet did not reply. She was watching a
butterfly out in the garden and trying to decide what it was he was
whispering to that big floppy rose.
Mrs. Page settled back into her pillows and pulled the coverlet well
up under her chin.
"You may go," she said, pointing a bony finger toward the door. "I
am about to write to your brother. I regret that I will have to tell
him that you are not only careless but rude."
"Yes, grandmother." Janet stood up, and after she had carefully
straightened the chair upon which she had been sitting she walked
quietly out of the room.
Once in the hall, with the door closed, a tiny sigh escaped her. She
leaned up against the old clock and stared at a patch of sunlight on
the rug; Two big round tears rolled down her cheeks unnoticed.
Boru came over inquisitively from his place by the stairs and licked
her hand. She dropped to her knees beside him and hugged him
impulsively.
"Come along, old fellow," she whispered. "Let's go up to the
'widow's walk' and think it all out. I guess grandmother is right;
something has come over me."