“I have not lived sixty odd years for nothing, and I know the signs pretty well. I’ve been through the mill myself.”
Here Aunt Betsy’s voice grew lower in its tone, and Morris looked up with real interest, while she went on,
“There’s Joel Upham—you know Joel—keeps a tin-shop now, and seats the folks in meetin’. He asked me once for my company, and to be smart I told him no, when all the time I meant yes, thinkin’ he would ask agin; but he didn’t, and the next I knew he was keepin’ company with Patty Adams, now his wife. I remembered I sniveled a little at being taken at my word, but it served me right, for saying one thing when I meant another. However, it don’t matter now. Joel is as clever as the day is long, but he is a shiftless critter, never splits his kindlins till jest bedtime, and Patty is pestered to death for wood, while his snorin’ nights she says is awful, and that I never could abide; so, on the whole, I’m better off than Patty.”
Morris laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which emboldened his visitor to say more than she had intended saying.
“You just ask her agin. Once ain’t nothing at all, and she’ll come to. She likes you; ’taint that which made her say no. It’s some foolish idea about faithfulness to Wilford, as if he deserved that she should be faithful. They never orto have had one another,—never; and now that he is well in Heaven, as I do suppose he is, it ain’t I who hanker for him to come back. Neither does Katy, and all she needs is a little urging, to tell you yes. So ask her again, will you?”
“I think it very doubtful. Katy knew what she was doing, and meant what she said,” Morris replied; and with the consoling remark that if young folks would be fools it was none of her business to bother with them, Aunt Betsy pinned her shawl across her chest, and hunting up both basket and umbrella, bade Morris good night, and went back across the fields to the farm-house, hearing from Mrs. Lennox that Katy had gone to bed with a racking headache.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
KATY.
“Are you of the same mind still?” Helen asked, when three weeks later she returned from New York, and at the hour for retiring sat in her chamber watching Katy as she brushed her hair, occasionally curling a tress around her fingers and letting it fall upon her snowy nightdress.
They had been talking of Morris, whom Katy had seen but once since that rainy night, and that at church, where he had been the previous Sunday. Katy had written an account of the transaction to her sister, who had chosen to reply by word of mouth rather than by letter, and so the first moment they were alone she seized the opportunity to ask if Katy was of the same mind still as when she refused the doctor.
“Yes, why shouldn’t I be?” Katy replied. “You, better than any one else, know what passed between Wilford——”