Phil's naïveté was dashed by her tone. Kathleen felt it.
"Mother's jealous, Phil," she said, "because she has seen so little of you all the week. She is at fever heat of curiosity as to what you have been doing; and as for tea! Mother's an inebriate. She won't leave any for the fish. You'll see."
Phil looked at the speaker gratefully, and leaned toward her a little. "I have the right barrel at last," he said. "The one that ran away to the island. Do you remember?"
His eyes were so very speaking that Kathleen dropped hers to the moss. She nodded and smiled.
"It knew where it ought to go, didn't it?" she returned.
Mrs. Fabian's countenance had sobered. She knew the descendant of the Van Ruyslers so well that she understood that she had offended.
"Can't one make a bit of fun once in a while?" she asked in injured tones of Kathleen when next they were alone.
"Yes, once in a while," answered the girl, and kissed her.
"It'll be something funny for you to look back upon when you come out, Kathleen, that your first function after graduating took place in a chicken-house."