“Fortunately there’s my pink organdie. That must do for dinners,” the mother began, counting on her earth-stained fingers.
“Pardon, Mother darling, my pink organdie. It’s been mine for over a year. Why will you go on calling things yours for years and years and years after they have descended? There’s my pink organdie then. It’ll have to do for church and for parties and for summer best just as it would if I were here. Two gingham dresses almost new. The blue flannel—but that will be too warm and scratchy for July, I’m afraid. Oh, Mother, that’s just all. I simply can’t go to Great Aunt Katherine’s, and I’ll never know Elsie!”
“Of course you can. Haven’t we always found a way to do the things we really wanted? Wait a minute. There’s my new white linen. I shall fix that for you. But your gingham dresses will never do, not for Oakdale. Never!”
“You’re not to give your white linen to me. It’s the prettiest thing you’ve got.”
“Hush! It will make a charming street suit. It will need a black silk tie and a patent-leather belt. I can see you in it.”
“You can, but you won’t!” But when Kate saw her mother’s dazed, puzzled little frown that invariably met her rare impertinences, she relented. “Oh, Mother,” she cried, “if I’m to have your very best things added to mine, of course I shall be perfectly fixed. It will be a regular trousseau.”
“I don’t need anything but these old smocks, staying here,” Katherine insisted. “And that’s exactly what I shall do, give you everything of mine that can possibly be of any use. For once in your life you are going to have just an ordinary young girl good time. And if you and Elsie do hit it off, perhaps Aunt Katherine will consent to her coming back with you for the rest of the vacation. Come, let’s spread all our possibilities out on the beds and see what there is!”
“Yes, after we’ve pared the potatoes for supper,” Kate agreed, trying desperately to hold on to her last shreds of casualness and poise. “We had better have supper to-night, I suppose, whether I go to Great Aunt Katherine’s or not. It must be six o’clock now.”
Katherine threw an arm across Kate’s shoulder as they went through the big door. “How fortunate it is,” she said, not for the first time, “that I have such a steady, common-sensible little girl!”
But Kate would not abide her own hypocrisy.