Kate sprang up and kissed her, saying, with an arch look at Harry, whose eyes she looked into for the first time, “Why, you can go. I’ll take care of—the little boy while you are gone.”
“O, my dear child!” cried Mrs. Dobson, as she espied Harry’s eyes, and caught sight of the ugly wound across his eye-brow, “didn’t you promise me not to?”
“Unless the house was on fire, or something happened; and something did happen. I was afraid we had killed you.”
“Kate! Kate! mother says you must come home to dinner right away,” said Frank, who had suddenly appeared on the scene; “and” (on his own authority) “you must go this very minute.”
Chapter V.
Kate Hallock knew just as well as could be that Mrs. Dobson was going to have something nice for dinner, for when Frank went out to order her home a savory odor followed him. She wished very much to stay, and lingered about the kitchen, half hoping and altogether wishing that Mrs. Dobson would invite her to stay to dinner: but the dear little woman only looked up from her boiling and baking to say—Mrs. Dobson always called Kate “Kittie, my Clover”—
“Now Kittie, my Clover, if you and Frank will come over and stay from five to seven this afternoon, I shall be very glad to go out a little while.”
“Why, Grandma Dobson,” cried Kate, “how that fire is burning your face up; I wouldn’t cook when ’twas so warm, if I were you. Let me turn over that meat, I won’t drop it in the fire.”
“Never mind me, I am used to it,” said Mrs. Dobson, bending over the glowing coals, glad to bury her face anywhere from Kate’s sharp eyes.