Mrs. Hallock smiled.
“Anyhow,” said Kate, blushing deeply and with tears in her eyes, “you just leave the feeding part to me; and I know Harry Cornwall will help me. You’ve no idea the lots and lots of stuff he has raised this year; and I’m sure it will be real nice to make sacrifices for dear Frank. You know, mamma, it will be like the story books.”
Kate grew quite eager as she ran on, planning what she could do, if affairs got to the very worst; and she was in the midst of it all when Frank came in with a basket of fine fish, which he displayed with all a fisherman’s pride.
“Has my uniform come yet?” he questioned.
“Mamma!” asked Kate, “will Frank’s new clothes cost much money?”
“Ah, Kate!” cried Frank, “so you want all the money for your own pretty dresses, do you?”
“No, I don’t, Master Frank; and I was wondering whether the uniform would help any in making you a great man.”
“I shall never make a great man, Kate,” said Frank, “and the sooner you give up that hope for me the better.”
“Then,” said Kate, “I’ll make a great woman of myself.”
Kate had, in the midst of her utmost devotion to Frank, moments of self-assertion. If he would not be the actor in whom she could rejoice, then she felt the necessity to be that which he would not be.