“Up to the dock after a new net.”
“When are you going to Long Island?” called Frank.
“Soon as we’ve fixed the net,” shouted back Victor. “In a day or two we’ll be off.”
Meanwhile the boat, plied by vigorous strokes, was urging its way up the harbor, so that Frank’s “Wish I was going with you!” failed to be heard.
Frank was fishing just outside the harbor.
“I want to run up, mamma, and see the Clover. I want to know that Frank is safe,” said Kate, at or about the same time that Victor’s boat was at the town wharf. From the tower room she could discern a little speck, which she imagined to be a boat. She went home and began to sew faster than ever, as though to make up for time lost in going on her little trip to investigate. Kate Hallock knew perfectly well that something had happened to make her father and mother uncomfortable. No one had said so, it is true, but she felt the worry, whatever it was, that troubled them.
“Mamma,” said Kate, after a long bit of silence between them. “I was very naughty the night you came home from New York and told me Frank was to go to school; for after I went to bed, I lay awake thinking that I ought to go just as much as Frank, and how ever so nice it would be to be at school and have a handsome brother like Frank coming, all dressed in his uniform, to see me.”
“But, Kate, my dear,” began Mrs. Hallock with a sigh.
Before she could utter another word, Kate had cast down her work and put her arms about her mother’s neck.
“O, mamma, I got over it right away, the very instant I thought of all the lonely rooms for you at home, and papa every night when he gets back from business, and poor Neptune in his stall, with nobody to love him much! It’s a lovely afternoon to go and give Grandma Dobson a drive, she is always so sweet, and ‘ready in a minute’ to go when I ask her! I don’t really and truly, mamma, think it would be best for me to go to school, even if you wished to have me.”