“I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve inherited the staying qualities of my great-great-grandfather,” he said, rising at last. “Really, I don’t wonder he found it hard to get away from here.” And then he bowed himself out with renewed expressions of gratitude for the information he had received, and of delight in that trip that was coming.
“A most estimable young man,” said Ruel Saxon, when he had ridden away.
“I think he’s the most agreeable young man I ever saw,” said Esther, warmly, and Stella added, “Quite au fait; but I mean to find out the next time he comes whether he really knows anything about art.”
From Mr. Philip Hadley to Miss Katharine Saxon was a far cry, but the latter had a genius for supplying contrasts, and she furnished one at that moment by appearing suddenly at the door. Aunt Elsie, who had been picking raspberries in the garden, was with her.
“Well, Katharine,” exclaimed her brother, hastening to meet her, “’pears to me you’re getting pretty smart to come walking all the way from your house this hot day.”
“I always had the name of being smart, Ruel,” said the old lady, seating herself, and proceeding with much vigor to use a feather fan made of a partridge tail, which hung at her belt; “but I shouldn’t have taken the trouble to show it by walking up here to-day if I hadn’t had an errand. Mary ’Liza wants to go home for a couple o’ days—her sister’s going to get married—and I s’pose I or’ to have somebody in the house with me. Not that I’m ’fraid of anything,” she added, “but I s’pose there’d be a terrible to-do in the town if I should mind my own business and die in my bed some night without putting anybody to any trouble about it. So I thought, long ’s you’ve got so many folks up here just now, I’d see if one of the girls was a mind to come down and stay with me.”
She had been facing her brother as she talked, but she turned toward Esther with the last words.
The girl’s face lighted with an instant pleasure. “Let me come, Aunt Katharine,” she said. “I should like to, dearly.”
There was a gleam of satisfaction in Aunt Katharine’s eyes. “I’d be much obleeged to you to do it,” she said promptly.
“But Aunt Katharine,” exclaimed Aunt Elsie, “don’t you think you’d better come here and stay with us? We should like to have you, and it’s a long time since you slept in your old room.”