The young man had listened with the closest attention while she talked, and he gave a little sigh when she finished. “I’m afraid I shan’t know as much about things that are happening there now as I did before you came away,” he said wistfully. “You were ever so good about writing to me, Kate. I haven’t had but one letter since you came away.”
His eyes wandered as he spoke to that letter with its well-known writing lying on the table, and it was not the first time since he came in that they had moved in that direction. Kate noted the hungry look, and felt mean.
“We had one to-day, and she is perfectly well,” she said uneasily. And then she would have changed the subject but that Virgie, who was so little given to conversation that her occasional contributions were the more dangerous, spoke up just then and said it was such an interesting letter, all about a visit Esther had made with grandfather; Kate had read it to them all, and it was beautiful.
“Can’t I hear it too?” said Morton, boldly.
There was no help for it now, and Kate walked soberly to the table. There were one or two passages she would certainly have left out, but Virgie, who had read it three times, would be likely enough to call attention to the omissions, and that would make the business worse. So she went straight through it, with a certain hardness of tone when allusions were made to the charming qualities of Mr. Philip Hadley which made them all the more emphatic.
Morton Elwell’s eyes did not move from her face as she read. Indeed, there was a tenseness about his expression at moments which suggested that he was holding his breath.
“So you see grandfather’s taking her into all the gayeties,” Kate said rather nervously, as she laid down the letter. “She’s a wonderful favorite with grandfather.”
Morton drew his hand across his forehead. “This Mr. Hadley is the one who went to the graveyard with her, isn’t he? Esther wrote me about that.”
“Yes, only ’twas Stella he was with,” said Kate. “Esther was with grandfather.”
The exact arrangement of the party was apparently not the main interest just then for Morton. “And he showed you around Boston and Cambridge and those other places afterward, didn’t he?” he queried.