Michael Angelo Buonarroti | Page 8

"Let's see, are these the wipers?" pursued Mrs. Howland, her hand on
one of the towels hanging behind the stove.
Kate's face hardened.
"Thank you, Aunt Ellen. You are very kind, but I can do quite well by
myself. You will please go into the living-room. I don't allow company
to do kitchen work."
"Of course not!" acquiesced Mrs. Howland imperturbably. "But your
father's sister is n't company, you know. Let's see, you put your clean
dishes here?"
"But, Aunt Ellen, you must n't," protested Kate. "At home you do
nothing--nothing all day." A curious expression came into Mrs.
Howland's face, but Kate Merton did not seem to notice. "You have
servants to do everything, even to dressing you. No, you can't wipe my
dishes."
For a long minute there was silence in the kitchen. Mrs. Howland,
wiper in hand, stood looking out the window. Her lips parted, then
closed again. When she finally turned and spoke, the old smile had
come back to her face.
"Then if that is the case, it will be all the more change for me to do
something," she said pleasantly. "I want to do them, Kate. It will be a

pleasure to me."
"Pleasure!"
Mrs. Rowland's clear laugh rang through the kitchen at the scorn
expressed in the one word.
"And is it so bad as that?" she demanded merrily.
"Worse!" snapped Kate. "I simply loathe dishes!" But a shamed smile
came to her lips, and she got the pans and water, making no further
objection.
"I like pretty dishes," observed Mrs. Howland, after a time, breaking a
long silence. "There's a certain satisfaction in restoring them to their
shelves in all their dainty, polished beauty."
"I should like them just as well if they always stayed there, and did n't
come down to get all crumbs and grease in the sink," returned the other
tartly.
"Oh, of course," agreed Mrs. Howland, with a smile; "but, as long as
they don't, why, we might as well take what satisfaction there is in
putting them in shape again."
"Don't see it--the satisfaction," retorted Kate, and her aunt dropped the
subject where it was.
The dishes finished and the kitchen put to rights, the two women
started for the chambers and the bed-making. Kate's protests were airily
waved aside by the energetic little woman who promptly went to
pillow-beating and mattress-turning.
"How fresh and sweet the air smells!" cried Mrs. Howland, sniffing at
the open window.
"Lilacs," explained Kate concisely.
"Hm-m--lovely!"

"Think so? I don't care for the odor myself," rejoined Kate.
The other shot a quick look from under lowered lids. Kate's face
expressed mere indifference. The girl evidently had not meant to be
rude.
"You don't like them?" cried Mrs. Howland. "Oh, I do! My dear, you
don't half appreciate what it is to have such air to breathe. Only think, if
you were shut up in a brick house on a narrow street as I am!"
"Think!" retorted Kate, with sudden heat. "I 'd like to do something
besides 'think'! I 'd like to try it!"
"You mean you'd like to leave here?--to go to the city?"
"I do, certainly. Aunt Ellen, I'm simply sick of chicken-feeding and
meal-getting. Why, if it was n't for keeping house for father I 'd have
been off to New York or Boston years ago!"
"But your home--your friends!"
"Commonplace--uninteresting!" declared Kate, disposing of both with
a wave of her two hands. "The one means endless sweeping and baking;
the other means sewing societies, and silly gossip over clothes, beaux,
and crops."
Mrs. Howland laughed, though she sobered instantly.
"But there must be something, some one that you enjoy," she
suggested.
Kate shook her head wearily.
"Not a thing, not a person," she replied; adding with a whimsical
twinkle, "they're all like the dishes, Aunt Ellen,--bound to accumulate
crumbs and scraps, and do nothing but clutter up."
"Oh, Kate, Kate," remonstrated Mrs. Howland, "what an incorrigible
girl you are!" As she spoke her lips smiled, but her eyes did not--there

was a wistful light in their blue depths that persistently stayed there all
through the day as she watched her niece.
At ten, and again at half-past, some neighbors dropped in. After they
had gone Kate complained because the forenoon was so broken up. The
next few hours were free from callers, and at the supper table Kate
grumbled because the afternoon was so stupid and lonesome. When Mr.
Merton came in bringing no mail, Kate exclaimed that nobody ever
answered her letters, and that she might just as well not write; yet when
the next day brought three, she sighed over the time "wasted in reading
such long letters."
The week sped swiftly and Sunday night came. Mrs. Howland's visit
was all but finished. She was going early