“That isn’t what she’ll say about it,” said the young man, and then he added warmly: “but my Aunt Jenny’s a host wherever you put her. There’s no doubt about that. My, what a good place this world would be if everybody in it was made like her!” And there was an assent to this which ought to have made the good woman’s ears burn, if there is any truth in the old saying.
For a while the talk ran lightly on the incidents of the day; then it grew more personal, and plans for the summer fell under discussion. Morton’s were all for work. He was of age, master of his own time, and he meant to make a good sum toward the expenses of the coming year at college. He talked of his hopes with the utmost frankness, and then questioned of theirs as one who had the fullest rights of friendship.
“Will you go away anywhere?” he asked; “or are you going to stay at home all summer?”
“That depends,” said Kate, answering for both. “We may go up to Maxinkuckee for a little while; but what we’d like to do, what we’d like best—” she paused upon the words with a lifting of her hands and the drawing of a long ecstatic breath, “would be to make a visit at grandfather’s. You can’t think how he’s urging us to come.”
“Do you mean go to New England?” he exclaimed, sitting up straight on his bundle of straw.
“Yes, to mother’s old home,” said Kate. “Just think, we haven’t been there since we were little girls. Mother’s been trying to persuade grandfather to come out here, but he says he’s too old to make the journey, and that we must come there. He has fairly set his heart on it.”
“And so have the others too,” said Esther. “Stella’s letters have been full of it for the last six months.”
“Stella’s that cousin of yours who’s such an artist, isn’t she?” said Morton. He was looking extremely interested.
“Oh, she’s an artist and everything else that’s lovely,” said Esther. “I don’t suppose you ever saw the kind of girl that she is. She has a studio in Boston in the winters. She sent me a picture of it once, and it’s perfectly charming. And only think, she’s been in Europe twice—once she was studying over there. And she’s seen those wonderful old places and the famous pictures, and been a part of everything that’s beautiful.”
“That’s the sort of thing you’d like to do yourself, I suppose,” said the young man, drawing a wisp of straw slowly through his fingers.