said firmly, “If Great Aunt Katherine thinks I’m going to leave you here alone on this deserted hill-top for a whole month of our precious vacation, she has a surprise in store. Shall we write or wire our regrets, Mother?”

“We’d better write,” Katherine answered, getting up suddenly and beginning in an unusually energetic way to pull up weeds from the lily-of-the-valley bed under the window. “I shall write that Saturday is too soon, for there must be some preparation on our part for such a visit. By next Tuesday, though, I should think you could be ready.”

Kate turned her head to follow her mother with amazed eyes. “You don’t mean I’m to go, Mother?”

“Yes, I want you to go. I want you very much to go. Aunt Katherine apparently needs you. I think, though, she must be drawing on her imagination a bit as to the loneliness of Oakdale for Elsie, especially since she herself says there will be parties and good times for you. You can’t have parties without young people! Even so, her saying she needs you makes our acceptance not only dignified but imperative.”

“But to leave you here alone! How could I ever do that? What are you thinking of?”

Katherine laughed at her daughter then. She was extraordinarily pretty when she laughed, startlingly pretty. But when she sobered, as she was bound to do too quickly, she was quite different, still lovely but not startling. Her face, sober, was intensely earnest. She had a rather square and strong chin but with wide, melting gray eyes to offset it. Her dark curly hair, which when undone came just to her shoulders, could be held in place at her neck with only a shell pin or two, it was so amenable in its curly crispness. Her cheeks and little slim hands were tanned, but with healthy colour showing through, making her, Kate often said, exactly the colour of a golden peach. She was slim and very graceful and not tall.

But in spite of all Katherine’s loveliness and feminine charm, the impression one gained from her was one of over-earnestness, a fire of intense purpose steadily, even fiercely burning under the outwardly gay and light manner.

Now she was laughing. “Why shouldn’t you leave me alone?” she asked. “And I won’t be so alone, either. The Harts are staying. The boys will be my protectors and my playfellows both. I’ve been a fortunate woman all these years to have two such boys as well as my girl! And three mornings a week, you know, I shall be busy helping Mr. Hart with his cataloguing.... 

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