"Sweet Evelina,
Last time I seen her
Stole a verbena
Out of her hair."

At this all the young folks laughed. Miss Ann heard Nan's stage
whisper, and felt Mildred's glance of disapproval and was quite
conscious that the fat boy's song was meant to make game of her, but
nothing mattered much except that Robert Bucknor's grandson, who
looked so like him, had run up the steps to meet her and had told her
she looked lovely and was now holding her hand tightly clasped against
his warm young heart. She saw old Billy peeping from the pantry door
as they entered the dining-room and she caught his glance of pride and
gratification when she appeared with the young master.

"What I tell you?" he muttered. "Ain't my Miss Ann the pick er the
bunch?"

CHAPTER IX

The Veterans' Big Secret

"Mumsy dear," said Judith, "I'm going over to Buck Hill this morning
and sell all kinds of things to my cousins and their guests."

"Judith, you are not! How can you go near those people when they treat
you like the dust under their feet?"

"But, Mumsy, they don't. People can't treat you like dust under their
feet unless you are beneath them, and I'm not in the least teensy
weensy bit beneath the Bucknors of Buck Hill. Now they might treat me
like the dust in the air--the dust they have to breathe when the wind
blows--breathe that or stop breathing altogether. They might not like
to breathe me in. I might be a little thick for them, but breathe me
they must. I did not make myself kin to them. I just _am_ kin to them.
I don't know that it makes any great difference to me to know that I
am. I rather like to think that, way back yonder, what is now me had
something to do with building Buck Hill, because it is beautiful. The
part that's me may have planned the garden. Who knows?

"But I'm not going there to sell things because they are my cousins.
I'm not going to mention such a disagreeable subject. I'm too good a
salesman for that. I am merely going there because I think I might
make some money. They have a house party on and when people go
visiting they always forget their tooth brushes and hairpins. I don't
exactly enjoy having Mildred Bucknor pretend I'm not around when I
know I'm very much in evidence. She had that way with her at school
and then it would have hurt me, if I had not been perfectly conscious
of the fact that she couldn't tell the difference