"I'll go see where she is," agreed Nan. "She won't be painting the fence this time, I know."
Jack was discovered before a tub in the wash house. In the absence of Ginny, the washerwoman, at breakfast, she had seized the opportunity of taking her place and was about to plunge her best muslin frock into the water with the stockings and underwear when Nan came upon her. "Jacqueline Corner, what are you up to now?" cried Nan, snatching the frock from her.
"I'm just helping Ginny to wash," replied Jack with her usual air of injured innocence when discovered under such circumstances.
"You were just helping Landy when you wasted the paint and ruined your blue frock," said Nan sarcastically. "Walk yourself right out of here. Ginny is perfectly capable of doing the washing without your assistance. Besides that lawn frock doesn't go in with black stockings; a pretty mess you'd make of it. Ginny won't thank you for mixing up her wash when she's sorted it all out. Try your energies upon something you know about, young lady."
Jack flung herself away. "You're always saying I mustn't do this and I mustn't do that," she complained. "You're a regular old cross-patch. You're not my mother to order me around."
"Mother sent me to see after you, so there," returned Nan. "I'm next to mother, too, for I'm next oldest. Where's Jean?"
"I don't know and I don't care," returned Jack, sullenly.
"Who's a cross-patch now? Here comes Ginny; you'd better make tracks out of here."
Jack fled and Nan returned to the house to find her mother ready to sit down to her sewing. The girl carefully shut the door and then established herself on an ottoman near her mother. "What does my Aunt Helen look like?" she asked abruptly.
Her mother looked up in surprise. "That's the second time lately that you have asked me about your Aunt Helen. Why this sudden interest, Nannie?"
"I'll tell you presently. It's part of the secret."
"Oh, it is. Well then, Helen has dark hair and blue eyes, a fair skin and little hands and feet. She is quite small, not much taller than you."
"It all sounds right," said Nan reflectively, "except the hair. Is she quite old, mother?"
"Oh, then, of course, it is some one else, only my little lady has a very young smile. Maybe she isn't so awfully old. Could any one younger than you have real white hair, mother?"