“I was there five weeks ago,” Marian replied; “I saw them all, and told them I was coming to New York.”
“Do they miss me any? Do they talk of me? Do they wish me back again?” Katy asked, and Marian replied, “They talked of little else, that is your own family. Dr. Morris, I think, did not mention your name. He has grown very silent and reserved,” and Marian’s eyes were fixed inquiringly upon Katy, as if to ascertain how much she knew of the cause for Morris’s reserve.
But Katy had no suspicion, and only replied, “Perhaps he is vexed that I do not write to him oftener, but I can’t. I think of him a great deal, and respect him more than any living man, except, of course, Wilford; but when I try to write, something comes in between me and what I wish to say, for I want to convince him that I am not as frivolous as he thinks I am. I have not forgotten the Sunday-school, nor the church service; but in the city it is so hard to be good, and the service and music seem all for show, and I feel so hateful when I see Juno and Wilford’s mother putting their heads down on velvet cushions, knowing as I do that they both are thinking either of their own bonnets or those just in front.”
“Are you not a little uncharitable?” Marian asked, laughing in spite of herself at the picture Katy drew of fashion trying to imitate religion in its humility.
“Perhaps so,” Katy answered. “I grow bad from looking behind the scenes, and the worst is that I do not care,” and then Katy went back again to the farm-house asking numberless questions and reaching finally the business which had brought her to Marian’s room.
There were spots on Marian’s neck, and her lips were white, as she grasped the bundles tossed into her lap—the yards and yards of lace and embroidery, linen, and cambric, which she was expected to make for the wife of Wilford Cameron; and her voice was husky as she asked directions or made suggestions of her own.
“It’s because she has no such joy in expectation. I should feel so, too, if I were thirty and unmarried,” Katy thought, as she noticed Marian’s agitation, and tried to divert her mind by talking of Europe and the places she had visited.
“By the way, you were born in England? Were you ever at Alnwick?” Katy asked, and Marian replied, “Once, yes. I’ve seen the castle and the church. Did you go there—to St. Mary’s, I mean?”
“Oh, yes, and I was never tired of that old churchyard. Wilford liked it, too, and we wandered by the hour among the sunken graves and quaint headstones.”
“Do you remember any of the names upon the stones? Perhaps I may know them?” Marian asked; but Katy did not remember any, or if she did, it was not “Genevra Lambert, aged 22.” And so Marian asked her no more questions concerning Alnwick, but talked instead of London and other places, until three hours went by, and down in the street the coachman chafed and fretted at the long delay, wondering what kept his mistress in that neighborhood so long. Had she friends, or had she come on some errand of mercy? The latter most likely, he concluded, and so his face was not quite so cross when Katy at last appeared, looking at her watch and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour.