Monty talked as fast as ever a boy could, nor did Katharine's tongue lag far behind, and for a time Moses listened eagerly. Then there came pangs of physical suffering which banished interest in all else, and while he was meditating how now best to rid himself of his guests, the hall clock struck nine.
"Nine o'clock! My suz! I didn't know it was half so late!" cried Susanna, honestly surprised. "Time you was home and abed, Montgomery Sturtevant, keepin' your poor grandmother up all hours like this, just account your pranks. My suz! and such a day. May I never see another like it!"
"Amen!" echoed poor Mr. Jones, so devoutly and in a voice of such suffering that they all silently withdrew.
"Only nine o'clock? Does nobody ever sit up till a respectable hour, here in Marsden? Why, at home, our evenings never began till after this time," remarked Katharine, now so wide-awake, and, it must be confessed, having had her nerves freshly excited by the recital of her woes to the sympathizing ear of Uncle Moses.
"Pooh! N-n-nine o'clock's n-n-nothing," assented Monty, who had never been out so late before in all his life.
"Isn't it?" asked Aunt Eunice, smiling. "Well, all the same, though it is rude to dispatch a guest, I'm sure it is full time for you to be with your grandmother, as Susanna justly remarked. She is doubtless anxious about you; and as for you, Katy dear, you are living in quiet Marsden now and not your city home."
The storm was fully over when they opened the great front door, and the moonlight set all the rain-drenched shrubs and trees a-glitter, so that Katharine exclaimed:
"Oh, look! It seems as if the world was just laughing at itself for having been so naughty a little while ago!"
Aunt Eunice gave the child a little squeeze, thinking how "Johnny" would have had just such a fancy, and Monty, wondering if all girls had queer ideas, bade them good night and started whistling down the path.
"We'll stand here till you get beyond the first big tree, my lad, and we'll follow you in our minds all the way," said Miss Maitland, kindly. Then to Katharine she added, softly: "He's doing that to keep his courage up."