He hastily picked up her suit-case and led her past the sidling admiration of the drummers, those sovereign critics of Western femininity, to the back of the station where stood a tottering surrey and a dingy gray nag, far gone in years, that leaned upon its shafts as though on crutches. Katherine clambered in, and the drooping animal doddered along a street thickly overhung with the exuberant May-green of maples.
She gazed with ardent eyes at the familiar frame cottages, in some of which had lived school and high-school friends, sitting comfortably back amid their little squares of close-cropped lawn. She liked New York with that adoptive liking one acquires for the place one chooses from among all others for the passing of one’s life; but her affection remained warm and steadfast with this old town of her girlhood.
“Oh, but it feels good to be back in Westville again!” she cried to the cabman.
“I reckon it must. I guess it’s all of two years sence you been home.”
“Two years, yes. It’s going to be a great celebration this afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Yes’m—very big”—and he hastily struck the ancient steed. “Get-ep there, Jenny!”
Mr. Huggins’s mare turned off Station Avenue, and Katharine excitedly stared ahead beneath the wide-boughed maples for the first glimpse of her home. At length it came into view—one of those big, square, old-fashioned wooden houses, built with no perceptible architectural idea beyond commodious shelter. She had thought her father might possibly stumble out to greet her, but no one stood waiting at the paling gate.
She sprang lightly from the carriage as it drew up beside the curb, and leaving Mr. Huggins to follow with her bag she hurried up the brick-paved path to the house. As she crossed the porch, a slight, gray, Quakerish little lady, with a white kerchief folded across her breast, pushed open the screen door. Her Katherine gathered into her arms and kissed repeatedly.
“I’m so glad to see you, auntie!” she cried. “How are you?”
“Very well,” the old woman answered in a thin, tremulous voice. “How is thee?”