“We thought Ruth had made a good match, though the man was consider’ble older ’n she was,—her mother hurried it on a little herself, for of course she was anxious to get the girls into homes of their own,—but he never was good to her after they were married. He broke her down with hard work, and holding her in, and the poor little thing only lived a year or two. After that if anybody said marriage to Katharine it was like tinder in dry leaves. She took to studying about woman’s rights and all that, till she got to be as—well, as you saw her this afternoon.”
“Poor Aunt Katharine!” said Esther, softly. That she had suffered wrong might surely bespeak in a generous mind some excuse for her bitterness, but that, after all, it was not her own wrongs, but those of others which had burned that bitterness into her soul, made it seem even noble to the girl who had heard her story.
“Yes, it was too bad. I’ve always been sorry for Katharine,” said the old gentleman, and then he added, with an asperity he could not quite repress: “but the trouble is she got into the way of looking all the time at the worst side of things, and by’m by it ’peared to her as if that side reached all the way round. She talks about folks having sense enough to put two ’n’ two together, but I notice she always picks out the partic’ler two she wants when she adds things up.”
A light step crossed the threshold at that moment, and Stella Saxon’s graceful figure appeared behind her grandfather’s chair. “Haven’t you had enough of Aunt Katharine for one day, Esther?” she demanded. “Leave grandfather to think up some new arguments for the next time he goes to see her, and come with me. I want you to see what a picture it is from the back of our old barn when the shadows creep over the hills.”
She lighted the lamp that stood by the open Bible, then slipped her arm through her cousin’s and drew her away. “Thank you for telling me all this,” said Esther, lingering a moment by her grandfather’s chair. “I love to hear stories of what happened here so long ago.”
“There are plenty of ’em, and they’ll keep,” he replied, smiling; and then he returned to the Proverbs again with unabated enjoyment.
“Do you know,” said Esther, as the two walked away, “I believe I should really love Aunt Katharine if I knew her.”
Stella gave one of her shrugs. “There’s no accounting for tastes,” she said. Then, as she glanced in at the barn door, which they were passing at that moment, she added with a laugh: “I declare, if Kate hasn’t managed to make her way with my brother Tom! They’re hobnobbing together like two old cronies.”
The truth was Kate Northmore had made up her mind to get acquainted with her cousin. Whether it was the barn or the boy that had brought her out this evening is not certain. She had a liking for a good quality of each. This particular barn was of a larger sort than she was used to, and the boy—she half suspected that he was smaller. There was something wrong about a boy who would go whistling off across the fields when his chores were done without saying “boo” to a girl who was looking after and longing to go with him. However, he might be only timid.
She had no thought of winning a place in his regard by the thing she did when she stepped into the barn to-night, but by chance she had done it. She had seen Dobbin standing in his stall with his harness on, as he had been put there an hour before. There was a rush of work now, for the cows were in the barn, and Tom and the hired man were seated at the milking. She had taken in the situation; then, with a word to Dobbin and a good-natured slap on his flank, stepped in beside him and removed his unnecessary burden.