She writhed herself from the arms which tried to detain her, and rising to her feet left the room suddenly, and throwing on her wrappings quitted the house without another word, leaving basket and umbrella behind, and never knowing she had left them, or how the rain was pouring down upon her unsheltered person, until, as she entered the narrow strip of woodland, she was met by Aunt Betsy, who exclaimed at seeing her, and asked,
“What has become of your umberell? Your silk one too. It’s hopeful you haven’t lost it. What has happened you?” and coming closer to Katy, Aunt Betsy looked searchingly in her face. It was not so dark that she could not see the traces of recent tears, and instinctively suspecting their nature she continued, “Catherine, have you gin Morris the mitten?”
“Aunt Betsy, is it possible that you and Morris contrived this plan?” Katy asked, half indignantly, as she began in part to understand her aunt’s great anxiety for her to visit Linwood that afternoon.
“Morris had nothing to do with it,” Aunt Betsy replied. “It was my doin’s wholly, and this is the thanks I git. You quarrel with him and git mad at me, who thought only of your good. Catherine, you know you like Morris Grant, and if he asked you to have him why don’t you?”
“I can’t, Aunt Betsy. I can’t, after all that has passed. It would be unjust to Wilford.”
“Unjust to Wilford—fiddlesticks!” was Aunt Betsy’s expressive reply, as she started on toward Linwood, saying, “she was going after the umberell before it got lost, with nobody there to tend to things as they should be tended to. Have you any word to send?” she asked, hoping Katy had relented.
But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which shook the rain drops from her capeless shaker, Aunt Betsy went on her way, and was soon confronting Morris, sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking very pale and sad.
He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather be alone until such time as he could control himself and still his throbbing heart. But with his usual affability, he bade Aunt Betsy sit down, shivering a little when he saw her in the chair where Katy had sat, her thin, angular body presenting a striking contrast to the graceful, girlish figure which had sat there an hour since, and the huge india rubbers she held up to the fire, as unlike as possible to the boot of fairy dimensions he had admired so much when it was drying on the hearth.
“I met Catherine,” Aunt Betsy began, “and mistrusted at once that something was to pay, for a girl don’t leave her umberell in such a rain and go cryin’ home for nothin’.”
Morris colored, resenting for an instant this interference by a third party; but Aunt Betsy was so honest and simple-hearted, that he could not be angry long, and he listened calmly, while she continued,