AT BREAKFAST
When Jack, the present Mrs. Jim Colter, came out of the house a few
moments after the younger girl, she was not aware of Jeanette's
departure.
Observing her on the way to the stables, she had no thought of
following her.
In fact, Jack distinctly recalled the days when, as one of the original
Rainbow Ranch Girls, she had made just such early-morning escapes from
her family and the problems that troubled her.
Already she was aware that among the four new Ranch Girls, Jeanette
would probably be her chief problem, if she were to succeed in her
determination to make friends.
Her husband had assured her otherwise. Jeanette always appeared easy
enough to manage, provided one did not interfere with her tastes too
seriously. She was boyish and frank and fond of the outdoors, a little
as he recalled Jack herself to have been. If she were wilful now
and then, she was seldom sullen. Always she was quick to forget an
unpleasantness.
Jack had not the same impression. Not knowing Jeanette intimately,
yet the year she had spent at Rainbow Lodge had afforded her a better
opportunity for observing Jeanette than any one of the other girls.
Rarely ever with any degree of amiability, Jeanette and her own
son, Jimmie, had spent a good many hours together. If they did not
especially like each other, they had the same interests.
Jeanette was what old-fashioned persons once called a tomboy. She loved
to ride and climb, fish and shoot, often excelling Jimmie, who was
younger.
Jeanette had never been particularly sweet-tempered with Jimmie.
Wanting her own way, she was apt to be difficult when opposed. From the
first Jack had seen that Jeanette resented the boy's affection for his
guardian, who was now his stepfather. More she resented her father's
devotion to the only boy in the family.
If she could be jealous of this relation, how much greater her
resentment against a stepmother, with such a strong claim upon her
father.
There were breakers ahead.
Her husband had insisted that Eda, the youngest of the four girls,
might be a trial. He never had understood her. A little more than a
baby at her mother's death, she had been a shy, strange little person,
thinking her own thoughts and living her own life with little regard to
any one else.
Yet the thought of Eda did not trouble the new stepmother. Eda was
young, was devoted to her older sister, and there was time enough to
watch her character unfold.
Jack had a shrewd idea that Jeanette had her own way with her
sisters more than any of them realized. Lina was studious and calm
in temperament. Her interests were more in books than in the outside
world. She seemed to love peace and quiet in order to pursue her
own tastes. She would be inclined to surrender to Jeanette on some
occasions because she was indifferent, on others to avoid argument.
Olivia, who was the gentlest of the four girls, with a wistful,
imaginative quality, was under the spell of her next older sister's
more active personality.
Without walking any distance from the house, Jack watched Jeanette ride
away. She sat her pony fairly well, but more carelessly than Jack
herself approved of.
She had no idea of riding before breakfast. She had come outdoors to
walk for an hour about the place and watch its awakening.
She went first to the Rainbow Creek, where gold had first been
discovered. There was little work going on at the mine at present.
Ralph Merritt, who had married Jean, her cousin, had accepted an
engineering position farther West.
Jack regretted the fact that no one of the three other original Rainbow
Ranch Girls would be at the old ranch during the present summer. She
and her husband had decided this would be wisest. The others had agreed.
Frieda's husband, Professor Russell, having completed his scientific
experiment, did not desire to remain longer at the ranch, now that
Peace, their little girl, was in better health.
Olive and her husband, Captain Bryan MacDonnell, had returned to
England, taking Jacqueline's own son, Jimmie Kent, to visit his
father's people.
Returning to the house, Jack found her husband dressed and outdoors
searching for her.
"I thought perhaps you might have run away, Mrs. Colter; you know you
have in times past."
Jack shook her head.
"Never really run away, Jim, only for a few hours, or at most a day at
a time. Now that I have grown elderly I suppose I should give up even
such short breaks for liberty. If I ever do again, please remember that
I shall always come back to you. What are you intending to do before
breakfast?"
Jack made no mention of having seen Jeanette ride off a half hour
before, not knowing whether it would meet her father's approval.
"I'm off to the ranch house to see the men before they start to work
for the day. If I wait until after breakfast they will have gone. I
shall ride out after them later."
Jack laughed.
"Glad to be at home and at work, Jim? A honeymoon is hard on a man,
isn't it? No, I won't go with you. I am going into the kitchen for
coffee. I want to be here when the girls come downstairs and to preside
properly at the breakfast table the first morning of our home-coming.
Don't be late."
Jack kept her eyes fastened on her husband for a moment after he turned
away.
She was aware that many persons felt their marriage a mistake. Devoted
as they were to their guardian, Jean and Olive, the two former Ranch
Girls, had hesitated. Only Frieda, who so rarely approved of anything
her older sister thought or did, had been openly pleased with Jack's
marriage to their former guardian.
"Jim has always been the one person who could make Jack do what she
should," Frieda had argued in a tone of relief, as though her own
responsibility were partly lifted.
Entering the room for breakfast some little time later, Jack wore a
cream-colored muslin dress, with brown shoes and stockings and a brown
satin belt. She had a lace kerchief about her throat, which seemed to
give her a properly domestic and elderly appearance.
Three of the four new Ranch Girls were waiting and appearing more
friendly than the evening before.
Evidently they too had put on especially pretty morning dresses in
honor of the occasion.
Jeanette was not present. Either she had failed to return, or else did
not wish to come to breakfast until it was actually announced.
"Jeanette has disappeared. I hope you won't think she is rude if she
does not get back in time for breakfast. She really should have known
better than to be away the first morning of your and father's return,"
Lina apologized.
Eda, in a pink starched frock, with her black hair in a stiff halo
about her face, looked like a slim Princess in a fairy tale. She
condescendingly allowed herself to be kissed.
Lina only shook hands, but Olivia put up her lips in a sweet and
natural fashion which gave her new stepmother a sensation of
satisfaction and relief.
Small wonder that the grave, gentle girl was the favorite of the entire
family.
Seeing her father enter at the same moment, she moved swiftly toward
him and heard him whisper:
"If everybody were like you, Via, this would be a lovelier world. Where
is Jeanette?"
When her absence was explained, he appeared more annoyed than the other
girls were accustomed to seeing him.
"I think Jeanette might have postponed her ride a few hours this
morning."
As he spoke steps were heard approaching and Jeanette entered the room
with an unexpected companion, a tall, fair boy.
She looked flushed and excited. The young fellow appeared pale and
weary.
The truth was that Jeanette had raced across the fields in order to be
at home at this moment, unmindful of the fact that her companion knew
little of riding and found it extremely difficult not to be left behind.
"I have discovered a new neighbor, father," said Jeanette, introducing
the newcomer first to him and ignoring the presence of her new
stepmother.
To her surprise Cecil Perry stretched out his hand.
"Is this Mrs. Colter? I know you cannot remember me, but I met you
several years ago. How glad I am to see some one I have met before!"