“Come to think of it, she has been to church twice now, two Sundays running. And Mrs. Turner spoke to her in the vestibule, seeing that she was a stranger and neatly dressed, and didn’t dream who she was; and she told me she was never so mortified in her life as when she found out afterward. A clergyman’s wife has to be so particular, you know.”
“Yes,” Kate answered, absently. Her heart was full of bitter and sardonic things to say about Mrs. Turner and her conceptions of the duties of a pastor’s helpmeet, but she withheld them because they might grieve Tabitha, and then was amazed at herself for being so considerate, and then fell to wondering whether she, too, was bitten by this Pharisaical spirit, and so started as out of a dream when Tabitha rose and said she must go and see Mrs. Minster before she took her departure.
“Remember your promise,” Kate said, with a little smile and another caress. She had not been so affectionate before in a long, long time, and the old maid mused flightily on this unwonted softness as she found her way up-stairs.
The girl returned to the window and looked out once more upon the smooth white crust which, broken only by half-buried dwarf firs, stretched across the wide lawn. When at last she wearied of the prospect and her thoughts, and turned to join the family on the floor above, she confided these words aloud to the solitude of the big room:
“I almost wish I could start a milliner’s shop myself.”
The depreciatory reflection that she had never discovered in all these years what was wrong with Tabitha’s bonnets rose with comical suddenness in her mind, and she laughed as she opened the door.
CHAPTER XIV.—HORACE EMBARKS UPON THE ADVENTURE.
Young Mr. Boyce was spared the trouble of going to Florida, and relieved from the embarrassment of inventing lies to his partner about the trip, which was even more welcome. Only a few days after the interview with Mrs. Minster, news came of the unexpected death of Lawyer Clarke, caused by one of those sudden changes of temperature at sunset which have filled so many churchyards in that sunny clime. His executors were both resident in Thessaly, and at a word from Mrs. Minster they turned over to Horace the box containing the documents relating to her affairs. Only one of these executors, old ’Squire Gedney, expressed any comment upon Mrs. Minster’s selection, at least in Horace’s hearing.