Kitty felt her face turning hot and red, but she chose to ignore the last part of her cousin’s remark. “You can’t go to Charlestown,” she said. “Granny won’t let you go where there’s likely to be fighting. You know that as well as I.”
They had turned in at the front gate now, and were walking under the budded lilac bushes, Sally Rose in the lead, Kitty following breathless, a few steps behind.
“A fig for Granny!” cried Sally Rose. “I love her, of course, but she’s a timid old lady, fit only to huddle in the chimney corner. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be bold and daring—the way a girl has to be these days. Of course she won’t let me go, and so I shan’t ask her. She drove out to see Nancy Davis this afternoon. When she gets back at suppertime, I won’t be here. I’ll be halfway to Rowley—or further on.”
She opened the unlocked kitchen door and ran lightly up the back stairs to their chamber.
Kitty followed, a little more slowly. She sat down on the edge of the high four-poster and dangled her feet over the side; watched while Sally Rose gathered ribbons, laces, and a few toilet articles and tied them up in a shawl.
“It’s a long walk to Charlestown,” she said tartly.
“Not so far for a horse,” answered Sally Rose.
“You have a horse then?”
“I know where to borrow one. I know where I can borrow two. Uncle Moses Chase keeps half a dozen in his barn on the Old Newbury road, and he’s gone with Granny, so he won’t know if we take them. He won’t care, when he finds out. Why don’t you come with me, Kitty? We’ll have a gay time in Charlestown.”
Kitty shook her head, but without much conviction. “I couldn’t go behind Granny’s back,” she said.