Katherine certainly had not counted the words!
When Kate looked up, the anxious watchers had vanished, dispersed by her smile as she read. She sat down in a chair standing against the wall. Her arms dropped at her sides and she leaned her head against the high-carved back of the chair, crushing a little her mother’s best hat. For the minute she was too absorbed in her own thoughts and too fatigued—the fatigue that is apt to come with sudden complete relief of mind—to remember such an item as a hat.
A step on the stair made her look up. Bertha was hurrying down, rustling in a raincoat, a scarf tied over her head.
“You’re here,” she exclaimed. “I saw you coming, from a window upstairs. Are these the things?”
Kate nodded, and Bertha took the packages and pocketbook from the floor where Kate had carelessly dropped them to tear open her telegram. Bearing them carefully she went away through the drawing-room.
“Well, she can’t get to the kitchen that way,” Kate mused, hardly caring. “And why the raincoat? Oh, well, What’s the use of trying to puzzle anything out any more? Mother’s coming, Mother’s coming, Mother’s coming!”
After a little while, yawning and half asleep, she wandered into Aunt Katherine’s own sitting-room—a graceful, comfortable little retreat tucked away in an isolated corner of the big house. The outstanding feature there was an oil painting of Kate’s mother at the age of sixteen in a blue party frock standing against dark velvet portières. It was a painting by Hopkinson in his earlier manner, executed with finish and most delicate feeling. The painting was one of Miss Frazier’s most valuable possessions, and Kate had surmised, when her aunt had shown it to her, one of the dearest. Certainly it was a painting with a spell over it, a spell of beauty and something besides, unnamable and illusive. Perhaps it was the spirit of youth which the artist had with such genius caught there, that gave it its magic.
Kate unfolded an afghan that lay conveniently on the foot of the sofa beneath the portrait, and curling herself up under it, settled down for a nap. She felt perfectly safe in losing herself for the time because Elsie had given her promise to stay in bed until luncheon.
But at one o’clock Bertha brought down the news that the doctor had ordered Elsie to remain in bed all afternoon, too. She was asleep now, and Bertha thought she would sleep for several hours. Her temperature had gone down to normal and she was comfortable. Later, when she woke, Bertha would take her up a light meal.
Lunching alone for Kate was a rather dreary procedure in spite of the coziness of the breakfast-room where Miss Frazier had thoughtfully ordered the meal served, and the merry little fire crackling on the hearth. Kate had had a good sleep and she was now so rested in body and mind that she could think about things with some clarity. She leaned her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand and regarded the fire as though it were her companion at the meal.