Their way home took them by the Green Shutter Tea Room, a quaint little place built by a stream in a grove of maples. The tables were set out under the trees. Aunt Katherine suggested that they stop. And when they were seated opposite each other at a little round green table, their order given, they smiled at each other contentedly, like friends of long standing.
CHAPTER IX
SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT
“You haven’t told me a word about how you like the orchard house!” Aunt Katherine said. “Did you go all over it? The study is really the nicest room. Did you like that? And did you see your mother’s old playroom?”
Kate hesitated to confess to her aunt that she had not been near the orchard house. It might involve Elsie too much. She remembered Elsie’s plea last night. So she hesitated, feeling her cheeks redden. But after an instant she said, “I think I shall save it for a day when there isn’t so much to do. It’s a darling house, but I haven’t been in.”
“After the party on Thursday I am hoping that all your days here will be full of things to do, yours and Elsie’s, too. She will begin to have the life of other girls again. For myself I have hardly cared a bit. I had rather grown away from my old friends, anyway, and larger interests, or at least more impersonal interests, have been absorbing me of late years. But now I’m pocketing my pride for Elsie’s sake, and going more than halfway toward reconciliations.... Madame Pearl, the woman to whom I am sending you to-morrow for frocks, is an artist in her way. You two girls must choose dresses that not only become yourselves but go well together.”
For Kate all the puzzling hints that ran through her aunt’s conversation were forgotten in this new subject. “But Mother and I thought my pink organdie would do for a party, if you gave one. You haven’t seen it. I shall wear it for dinner to-night.”
“No, I haven’t seen it, but I am sure it is very dainty and pretty. Even so, this is to be Elsie’s first real party, and her first real party frock. And it will be more appropriate for you to have dresses that match in a way, or contrast with each other artistically. You will let me give you such a gift, won’t you, Kate?”
There was surprising entreaty in Aunt Katherine’s dark eyes, and fear, too. Would Kate be simply an echo of her mother? Would she rise up in pride and say, “No charity, thanks”?
Meanwhile, Kate was thinking rapidly. She had no idea whatever whether her mother would want her to accept a party frock from Aunt Katherine or not. But quickly she decided that her mother would want her to speak for herself now, that this was a matter between herself and her aunt.
“Of course I shall love to have a party dress,” she exclaimed. “Oh, but you are good to me, Aunt Katherine! And it will be my first as well as Elsie’s.”