The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cloudy Jewel, by Grace Livingston Hill

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Title: Cloudy Jewel

Author: Grace Livingston Hill

Release Date: September 17, 2009 [EBook #30006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CLOUDY JEWEL

CLOUDY JEWEL

BY

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

AUTHOR OF

MARCIA SCHUYLER, THE SEARCH, ETC.

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

CLOUDY JEWEL

CLOUDY JEWEL

CHAPTER I

"Well, all I've got to say, then, is, you're a very foolish woman!"

Ellen Robinson buttoned her long cloak forcefully, and arose with a
haughty air from the rocking-chair where she had pointed her remarks
for the last half-hour by swaying noisily back and forth and touching
the toes of her new high-heeled shoes with a click each time to the
floor.

Julia Cloud said nothing. She stood at the front window, looking out
across the sodden lawn to the road and the gray sky in the distance.
She did not turn around to face her arrogant sister.

"What I'd like to know is what you do propose to do, then, if you
don't accept our offer and come to live with us? Were you expecting to
keep on living in this great barn of a house?" Ellen Robinson's voice
was loud and strident with a crude kind of pain. She could not
understand her sister, in fact, never had. She had thought her
proposition that Julia come to live in her home and earn her board by
looking after the four children and being useful about the house was
most generous. She had admired the open-handedness of Herbert, her
husband, for suggesting it. Some husbands wouldn't have wanted a poor
relative about. Of course Julia always had been a hard worker; and it
would relieve Ellen, and make it possible for her to go around with
her husband more. It would save the wages of a servant, too, for Julia
had always been a wonder at economy. It certainly was vexing to have
Julia act in