“And does Esther like everybody?” she asked, with a returning sharpness.
“She keeps it to herself if she doesn’t,” said Kate. “She’s kind to everybody—most everybody,” she added, with a sudden remembrance of the one person to whom Esther had not of late seemed always kind. “And that’s how she gets into trouble, making everybody like her, with her soft pleasant ways and saying nice things. Oh, I’ve had to stand up for her so many times to keep her from being imposed on! I’m standing up for her now,” she went on passionately. “It’s your ideas you care about, and you want her to take up with them, whether they’ll make her happy or not. But I care for her, and I want to make you stop.”
The old woman’s face had grown as tense as a drawn bow. “So you think my ideas are getting hold of her, do you?” she asked.
“She thinks they are,” cried Kate, “but I don’t believe it. I believe it’s just because she thinks so much of you. But if she should come to feel as you do about all those things, what good would it do? She couldn’t fight for them. Do you think there’s any fight in Esther Northmore?” She threw out her hand with an impatient gesture. “Oh, they say you’re so clever! But you’re not clever at all if you think that. She’d bear things till they broke her heart before she’d fight.”
Miss Saxon’s lips were drawn tight, and her eyes narrowed to a bright dark line, as if these side-lights that Kate had been throwing on Esther’s character had blinded her a little. She did not speak for a moment, and the girl went on hotly, even fiercely.
“You talk about wanting women to be so free and independent, but you want to bind Esther to those ideas of yours and make her carry them out. I’ll tell you what would be the end of it if she should come into your plan. She’d stand by what she promised, but ’twould kill her. She’s made for loving, and for caring about the things we’ve always cared about, and she wouldn’t be happy any other way. She isn’t that kind.”
Aunt Katharine’s lips parted now. They seemed to be as dry as Kate’s had been a little while ago. She leaned forward on her cane and asked a question slowly. “You pretend to know so much about your sister, tell me, do you think there’s anybody she cares for now?”
Kate dropped her head for a moment, but it was no time for evasions. The excitement and strain of the situation were too much for her at last. “No, I don’t,” she said, with the tears springing into her eyes. “But there’s somebody that cares a sight for her; and if she should ever come to care for him she’d be a thousand times happier than she’d ever be with anything you could do for her. Oh, if you should make her promise—if you should leave your money to her—I should hate you as long as I live, and she would hate you, too, after a while.”
Miss Katharine Saxon rose from her seat. She had not been as straight in years, but she trembled from head to foot as she stood there facing the girl.
“Katharine Northmore,—for you’re my namesake, if you do hate me,—” she said slowly, “you’ve said enough. You took upon yourself to do a very impertinent thing when you came down here to give instructions to me. I shall walk by the light I’ve got, and do my duty as I see it, by myself and your sister too. Now go home. And you needn’t be afraid I shall tell Esther you were here. I shan’t shame her nor myself by ever speaking of it.”