`` I believe it was , '' said Cyrilla , thinking of Miss Marshall . Dorinda 's Desperate Deed Dorinda had been home for a whole wonderful week and the little Pages were beginning to feel acquainted with her . When a girl goes away when she is ten and does n't come back until she is fifteen , it is only to be expected that her family should regard her as somewhat of a stranger , especially when she is really a Page , and they are really all Carters except for the name . Dorinda had been only ten when her Aunt Mary -- on the Carter side -- had written to Mrs. Page , asking her to let Dorinda come to her for the winter . Mrs. Page , albeit she was poor -- nobody but herself knew how poor -- and a widow with five children besides Dorinda , hesitated at first . She was afraid , with good reason , that the winter might stretch into other seasons ; but Mary had lost her own only little girl in the summer , and Mrs. Page shuddered at the thought of what her loneliness must be . So , to comfort her , Mrs. Page had let Dorinda go , stipulating that she must come home in the spring . In the spring , when Dorinda 's bed of violets was growing purple under the lilac bush , Aunt Mary wrote again . Dorinda was contented and happy , she said . Would not Emily let her stay for the summer ? Mrs. Page cried bitterly over that letter and took sad counsel with herself . To let Dorinda stay with her aunt for the summer really meant , she knew , to let her stay altogether . Mrs. Page was finding it harder and harder to get along ; there was so little and the children needed so much ; Dorinda would have a good home with her Aunt Mary if she could only prevail on her rebellious mother heart to give her up . In the end she agreed to let Dorinda stay for the summer -- and Dorinda had never been home since . But now Dorinda had come back to the little white house on the hill at Willowdale , set back from the road in a smother of apple trees and vines . Aunt Mary had died very suddenly and her only son , Dorinda 's cousin , had gone to Japan . There was nothing for Dorinda to do save to come home , to enter again into her old unfilled place in her mother 's heart , and win a new place in the hearts of the brothers and sisters who barely remembered her at all . Leicester had been nine and Jean seven when Dorinda went away ; now they were respectively fourteen and twelve . At first they were a little shy with this big , practically brand-new sister , but this soon wore off . Nobody could be shy long with Dorinda ; nobody could help liking her .
She was so brisk and jolly and sympathetic -- a real Page , so everybody said -- while the brothers and sisters were Carter to their marrow ; Carters with fair hair and blue eyes , and small , fine , wistful features ; but Dorinda had merry black eyes , plump , dusky-red cheeks , and a long braid XXXXX glossy dark hair , which was perpetually being twitched from one shoulder to another as Dorinda whisked about the house on domestic duties intent .
At as for from into of on that to with