Jenny moved closer to the girl in brown as she exclaimed, "Yes, I do think you are queer, if queer means different from those other girls." Then she laughingly confessed, "The truth is I never had a girl friend either, not one, but I have lots of make-believe friends, so, you see, I also am queer."
The girl in brown beamed, "O, I am so glad, for maybe, do you think possibly you and I might become friends, being both queer and all that?"
Jenny nodded joyfully. "Why, of course we can be friends if you wish. That is, if Miss Granger would want you to be friendly with any but the gentry. Perhaps she doesn't allow the pupils of her school to make acquaintances on the outside."
This thought was not at all troubling to the strange girl. "You see," she began seriously, "I am not subject to the rules governing the other pupils."
Then, noting the puzzled expression in the listener's eyes, she leaned back against the tree as she laughingly continued: "Suppose I begin at the beginning and then you will understand about me once for all."
"We don't even know each other's names," Jenny put in. "Mine is Jeanette Warner. I have always lived with my grandparents on Rocky Point farm, which belongs to the estate of the Poindexter-Jones family." A shadow passed over the speaker's face, which, a moment before, had been so bright. "I want to be real honest before we begin a friendship. We are not farmers in our own right. We are hired to run a farm, therefore we are servants in the employ of the mother of one of your classmates. At least that is what Gwynette Poindexter-Jones calls us."
The observant listener saw the flush mounting to her new friend's cheeks, and, impulsively, she reached out a hand and placed it on the one near her. "What does _that_ matter? I mean so far as our friendship is concerned," she asked.
Jenny was relieved. "Doesn't it really? Well, then I'm glad. Now please tell me all about yourself from the very beginning."
Jenny noticed that her companion looked frail and so she was not surprised to hear her say that she had been very ill. "Lenora Gale is my name," she began, "and my family consists of an unequalled father, and of a brother who is just as nice only younger. My dearest mother died of lung trouble years ago, and every time since then when I have caught cold, it has taken my vitality to an alarming extent, and last fall, when the bitter winter weather set in, and oh, how cold our northern winters are, father wanted me sent to California, but he could not come himself. Brother Charles wished to attend an agricultural college near Berkeley and so I was put in a boarding school up there, just as a place to stay and be well cared for. I was not to attend classes unless I desired. But the rainy season continued for so long that Brother thought best to bring me farther south, and that is why I am now in the Granger Place Seminary."