Catherine honestly believed that she was glad to hear this, for it seemed one more stay to keep her thoughts right.
“And that, Catherine, is one reason among many others I have, for knowing his indestructible love for Carolyn. And that is why I feel no hesitation in having this letter written, to end this foolish quarrel, and to restore peace to these two unhappy young people,” said Mrs. Clifton, looking, Catherine thought, very strangely at her—so strangely, that the maiden felt her cheeks burn with a vague sense of humiliation.
She asked herself—Could Mrs. Clifton have read what had been passing in her mind? Well! if so—that was another band to bind her thoughts to the right.
“Now, then, to your task, my child. You will find paper in Captain Clifton’s portfolio.” She spoke gently as ever to Kate, but still called her son “Captain Clifton,” as if to widen the distance between them.
Kate felt troubled at this, and then took herself to task for a state of mind so morbidly acute to impressions, that she noticed everything, even that trifle. She searched and found the writing materials in the portfolio, and went to work and wrote, from Mrs. Clifton’s dictation, a letter, full of gentle rebuke, and kind, motherly counsel, to Archer Clifton. And all to the end that he should write immediately, and reconcile himself to Carolyn, who was extremely ill, and whom his mother felt assured, she said, that he must be most anxious to propitiate. The letter was sealed and dispatched, and the lady, thoroughly worn out, and leaning upon the arm of Catherine, sought her own bed-chamber.
The next morning, Mrs. Clifton was so weary that she could only leave her bed-chamber to lie upon the sofa in the shady parlor, where she could be at hand to direct the operations of her house servants—now engaged in cutting out and making up the Fall clothing for the negroes. Catherine came early to assist in this onerous task. It was in the afternoon while the lady was still reclining on the sofa, and Catherine standing at a work-table basting a linsey-woolsey frock-body—when a horse was heard to gallop up into the yard, a man to jump off and hasten up the steps of the piazza, and the instant after, old Mr. Clifton entered the parlor, looking very much flurried and alarmed.
“What is the matter? I hope Carolyn is no worse?” asked the lady, anxious, yet calm.
“No! Yes! A great deal better of course since the turn last night! Most malignant form of the disease, and growing rapidly worse every hour. I tell you it is! The doctor affirms it!”
Mrs. Clifton gazed at him in a sort of self-possessed perplexity.
“She has got the small-pox, madam.”