Tom was not inclined to anxieties, and a certain inquisitorial attitude which his grandfather had maintained during the past few days as to his own work at the barn, and the amount of care which Dobbin was receiving, had left the impression on his mind that his grandfather was not suffering as much as he might be.
He revealed this to some extent as he answered Aunt Katharine’s questions, and she, after putting them sharply for a few minutes, settled back in her chair with an air of evident relief. She was not surprised to learn that Esther had put off her going to Boston. “I should know she’d do it,” she said, nodding, and she added, with a peculiar smile, “I s’pose your grandfather hated dreadful bad to disappoint her.”
Tom disclaimed any knowledge on this head, and then remarked acutely, “He’ll keep her busy enough while she stays. He doesn’t seem to want her out of his sight a minute.”
“Hm,” said Miss Saxon. “I’ll warrant he’d keep ’em all busy if they were there.” And then she remarked casually, “It must seem sort of quiet at your house compared with what ’twas this summer.”
“Kate was the liveliest one,” said Tom, and he said it with such a tone of regret that his aunt looked at him keenly.
“You liked her, did you?” she asked.
Perhaps his secret knowledge of that interview in which she had worsted Kate, and an impression that she had a special grudge against the girl, inclined him to the unusual emphasis with which he answered the question.
“I never saw a girl I liked so well in my life,” he said. “She’s made of the right sort of stuff, and she’s game clear through.”
“Hm,” grunted Miss Saxon again, beginning to look very much interested. “I understand you ’n’ she did a sight of quarrelling. She generally got ahead of you, didn’t she?”
“No marm, she didn’t,” said Tom, promptly. “I generally got ahead of her, only she’d never own it.”