Kate subdued and endured her loneliness from day to day, her chief relief from Frank’s absence being found in writing to him long, loving letters, in which, very soon, many lines began to be taken up with the lovely times she was having at her drawing and painting lessons. Kate began to feel the stir of a growing affection for form and color. She scarcely understood the feeling; she did not try to understand its development; but she ran across the marsh bridge with every bit of fresh achievement, whether of pencil or brush, to show the same to delighted Mrs. Dobson and critical Harry.
Harry was exceedingly industrious in those days—more so than ever before. Harry had all the joy of an old miser in his well-stored crops, and he knew just when and where he could find sale for them.
For a number of days Mr. Hallock had returned from business bearing a brighter face, and Kate firmly believed that the old, bothersome days of trouble were passing away. Kate did not mind wearing last year’s dresses one bit; and as for last winter’s hat and cloak, the only day on which she sighed for better raiment was the one on which she went to call upon Frank at the school, and that sigh and wish were altogether on Frank’s account; but when he whispered to her, as she was leaving, “Kate, I say, I haven’t seen a girl in New Haven half so good-looking as you are,” she thought no more of old-fashioned hat or cloak, and would have been willing to wear even the precious old bonnet safely stored away in a big yellow bandbox in the garret at the Point—the bonnet that had been worn by her great-grandmother. Anything Kate would have worn to call forth such a remark from Frank.
The evening of the day on which the first snow fell that year, Kate drove Neptune to the station to meet her father, and her brightest smile faded before his sad, careworn face. She knew at a glance that some new thing to worry him had happened; so, on the bit of journey home, she tried her utmost to tell him of every cheery crumb of news that she could think of, and appeared not to notice any unusual thing about his manner.
That night Frank’s school-bill came. Mr. Hallock, forgetful of Kate’s presence, looked at it and laid it down with a long sigh.
“May I see, papa?” was the first intimation he received that she had heard.
“Yes, Kate; and you may pay it, if you like,” he replied, with a cheerless attempt at a smile.
Kate looked at it.
“What a lot of money!” she said. Presently, after a minute’s thought, she asked: “Papa, have you got the money to pay this?”
“No, my child. At present I have not.”