The short wintry day was closing now, with a prospect of more rain, and the lamps were lighted, and a bright fire was blazing in the parlor, to which Mrs. Stannard conducted her guests after kissing the rosy face under the blue hood. As she wore a big white apron and had a speck of flour on her sleeve, which she had failed to see, Connie mistook her for the cook, and the moment she was alone with her aunt she said:
“I wish we had that nice cook instead of old Thorn, who is so cross,—don’t you?”
“Hush-sh!” came a second time from Mrs. Hart. “There are no cooks here, nor grooms, nor maids. They all wait upon themselves.”
“That’s funny,” Connie replied. “Who is going to undress and dress me, and hear me say my prayers, I’d like to know? You might have brought Jean. Why didn’t you?”
Never in her life had Connie dressed or undressed herself, or said her prayers alone. Mrs. Hart, who meant to bring Connie up religiously, so far at least as ceremony was concerned, was too indolent to do anything which she could put upon another, and had given strict orders to Jean, the maid, that Connie must say her prayers every night, together with the collect for the day. Jean had performed her duty conscientiously, and had enjoined upon the little girl that to omit her prayers or the collect would be a sin. To dress and undress herself Connie did not mind so much, but to have some one keep her going when she said her prayers seemed a part of the prayer itself, and she looked rather sober till they were in their sleeping-room, to which Mrs. Hart asked to be shown. Here she became interested at once in the furniture and the high bed, wondering how she was to get into it. But what pleased her most was the fire, which went roaring up the chimney, sending out great waves of warmth into the big room.
“Oh, why don’t we have a fire like this? It’s so nice,” Connie said, sitting down upon the hearth and holding her hands to the blaze.
Mrs. Hart did not answer, for just then Kenneth came to say that supper was ready, and they were soon seated at the beautifully spread table, where Connie, who was hungry, forgot to ask questions and gave herself wholly to her supper, stopping occasionally to give a loving squeeze to the kitten she had captured, and which lay in her lap purring its content. Kenneth had told her of the dozen more cats, besides a litter of young kittens, in the barn, and the moment supper was over she asked to go and see them. But her aunt interposed. It was too late and too cold; the cats would keep till to-morrow, and she bade Connie come with her to the parlor and be quiet.
The first evening was rather dull for all the party except Connie, whom Kenneth taught how to play cat’s cradle, and told her the names of the felines she was to see in the morning. The deacon nodded over his paper, while Mrs. Stannard exchanged her white apron for a black silk one and then knit assiduously on a sock which she said was for Harry, who was at school at Andover, but spending his vacation with a friend in Kentucky.
“I didn’t know you had another son,” Mrs. Hart said, and then Mrs. Stannard told of her sister and Harry’s mother lying in the graveyard, and of his father lying in the Morris vault, somewhere in Kentucky.
Very little was said of him, but the Morris family was dwelt upon at large as something to be proud of. Mrs. Hart thought she had heard of them, and said she had met a Mrs. Haynes, from Lexington, Ky., presumably the family Harry was visiting, and she found her respect rising a little for the Stannards, who were in a way connected with the Morrises, and whose nephew was a student in Andover and a guest at the Hayneses. At eight o’clock she told Connie it was time for her to go to bed, adding, “I’ll go with you, if you are afraid.”