第62章

SISTER KATE AGAIN

It was on the Sunday following Class Day that Mrs. Hartwell carried out her determination to "speak to William." The West had not taken from Kate her love of managing, and she thought she saw now a matter that sorely needed her guiding hand.

William's thin face, anxious looks, and nervous manner had troubled her ever since she came. Then one day, very suddenly, had come enlightenment: William was in love--and with Billy.

Mrs. Hartwell watched William very closely after that. She saw his eyes follow Billy fondly, yet anxiously. She saw his open joy at being with her, and at any little attention, word, or look that the girl gave him. She remembered, too, something that Bertram had said about William's grief because Billy would not live at the Strata. She thought she saw something else, also: that Billy was fond of William, but that William did not know it; hence his frequent troubled scrutiny of her face. Why these two should play at cross purposes Sister Kate could not understand. She smiled, however, confidently: they should not play at cross purposes much longer, she declared.

On Sunday afternoon Kate asked her eldest brother to take her driving.

"Not a motor car; I want a horse--that will let me talk," she said.

"Certainly," agreed William, with a smile; but Bertram, who chanced to hear her, put in the sly comment: "As if ANY horse could prevent--that!"On the drive Kate began to talk at once, but she did not plunge into the subject nearest her heart until she had adroitly led William into a glowing enumeration of Billy's many charming characteristics; then she said:

"William, why don't you take Billy home with you?"William stirred uneasily as he always did when anything annoyed him.

"My dear Kate, there is nothing I should like better to do," he replied.

"Then why don't you do it?"

"I--hope to, sometime."

"But why not now?"

"I'm afraid Billy is not quite--ready."

"Nonsense! A young girl like that does not know her own mind lots of times. Just press the matter a little. Love will work wonders--sometimes."

William blushed like a girl. To him her words had but one meaning--Bertram's love for Billy. William had never spoken of this suspected love affair to any one. He had even thought that he was the only one that had discovered it. To hear his sister refer thus lightly to it came therefore in the nature of a shock to him.

"Then you have--seen it--too?" he stammered "'Seen it, too,'" laughed Kate, with her confident eyes on William's flushed face, "I should say I had seen it! Any one could see it."William blushed again. Love to him had always been something sacred; something that called for hushed voices and twilight.

This merry discussion in the sunlight of even another's love was disconcerting.

"Now come, William," resumed Kate, after a moment; "speak to Billy, and have the matter settled once for all. It's worrying you. Ican see it is."

Again William stirred uneasily.

"But, Kate, I can't do anything. I told you before; I don't believe Billy is--ready.""Nonsense! Ask her."

"But Kate, a girl won't marry against her will!""I don't believe it is against her will.""Kate! Honestly?"

"Honestly! I've watched her."

"Then I WILL speak," cried the man, his face alight, "if--if you think anything I can say would--help. There is nothing--nothing in all this world that I so desire, Kate, as to have that little girl back home. And of course that would do it. She'd live there, you know.""Why, of--course," murmured Kate, with a puzzled frown. There was something in this last remark of William's that she did not quite understand. Surely he could not suppose that she had any idea that after he had married Billy they would go to live anywhere else;--she thought. For a moment she considered the matter vaguely; then she turned her attention to something else. She was the more ready to do this because she believed that she had said enough for the present: it was well to sow seeds, but it was also well to let them have a chance to grow, she told herself.

Mrs. Hartwell's next move was to speak to Billy, and she was careful to do this at once, so that she might pave the way for William.

She began her conversation with an ingratiating smile and the words:

"Well, Billy, I've been doing a little detective work on my own account.""Detective work?"

"Yes; about William. You know I told you the other day how troubled and anxious he looked to me. Well, I've found out what's the matter.""What is it?"

"Yourself."

"Myself! Why, Mrs. Hartwell, what can you mean?"The elder lady smiled significantly.

"Oh, it's merely another case, my dear, of 'faint heart never won fair lady.' I've been helping on the faint heart; that's all.""But I don't understand."

"No? I can't believe you quite mean that, my dear. Surely you must know how earnestly my brother William is longing for you to go back and live with him."Like William, Billy flushed scarlet.

"Mrs. Hartwell, certainly no one could know better than YOURSELFwhy that is quite impossible," she frowned.

The other colored confusedly.