“Foolish! foolish!” she murmured, smiling the very ghost of a smile, as she turned to gather up the cups and plates from the tea table.
When Harry fetched in the milk she was washing them, just as usual, he thought, while she was thinking that if Harry could be of more service at the Point than in the Lane, he ought to go there.
The next morning Frank Hallock went bounding into the brown house to exhibit himself in the uniform which had arrived the night before. “The swamp-bridge is a capital institution, Harry,” he said. “When I go to Congress, I’ll vote for swamp-bridges all along the coast. How do you like me in my fine feathers?”
Mrs. Dobson surveyed Frank’s fine figure and erect carriage, and pronounced the uniform “fit for any gentleman.”
Harry remarked: “My mother used to say that real soldiers are always gentlemen, and never” (he added on his own account) “leave a lady to find her way alone across a marsh, as our soldier left his sister just now.”
“Oh! you mean Kate,” said Frank, too well pleased at the moment to resent anything that anyone might say. “Kate had no need to come. She only wanted to hear what you would say to my new clothes.”
And just here Kate presented herself, panting for breath and disappointed. She had lost that first expression of pleased surprise that she longed to see. However, her enjoyment was too simple and genuine to be long delayed at any time, and one or two laughing sentences from her precious brother made far away the wrong of a few moments ago.
“Don’t be so grand, Frank, that you can’t come to see me. I am afraid the military school will spoil you for the old brown house and Grandma Dobson,” Mrs. Dobson said, as they were about to go home.
“I’ll come at the Christmas vacation,” replied Frank, “and bring three or four of the fellows and spend the day here. You see if I don’t! I’ll be civil enough, though, to let you know when, for four or five of us would eat an awful sight of your rye bread.”
“I’ll come over the day before and help you make it, grandma, and then I’ll come that day and help eat it,” said Kate, kissing the dear soul good-bye, and departing in jubilant spirits with Frank.