"It isn't for your mother," Miss Charlotte said, with a sudden softening of her voice; "it is for you. I'm an old woman, you know, and I've whims. It's my whim for you to have the bud because I've watched it growing, and loved it almost as if it were my own baby."
Then I knew that she had heard of the broken engagement. The sense of the village gossip, the idea of being talked over at the sewing-circle, came to me so vividly and so dreadfully that for a moment I could hardly get my breath. Then I remembered the sweetness of Miss Charlotte's act, and I went to her and kissed her. The poor old dear had tears in her eyes, but she said nothing. She understood, I am sure, that I could not talk, but that I had seen what she meant me to see, her sympathy and her love. We sat down before the fire in the gathering dusk, and talked of indifferent things. She praised Peter's beauty, although the ungrateful Peter refused to stay in her lap, and would not be gracious under her caresses. She did not remain long, and she was gay after her fashion. Miss Charlotte is apt to cover real feeling with a decent veil of facetiousness.
"Now I must go home and get my party ready," she said, rising with characteristic suddenness.
"Are you going to have a party?" I asked in some surprise.
"I have one every night, my dear," she returned, with her explosive laugh. "All the Kendall ghosts come. It isn't very gay, but it's very select."
She hurried away, and left me more touched than I should have wished her to see.
February 2. It was well for me that Miss Charlotte's visit prepared me last night, for to-day Kathie broke in upon me with the most childish frankness.
"Miss Ruth," she burst out, "ain't you going to marry George Weston?"
"No, my dear," I answered; "but you mustn't say 'ain't.'"