"What do you think?" demanded Nancy Ellen.
"Think very likely she has decided that she'll sacrifice her
chance for more schooling and to teach, for the sake of marrying a
big, green country boy named Hank Peters," said Kate.
"Thereby keeping in her own class," suggested Nancy Ellen.
Kate laughed shortly. "Exactly!" she said. "I didn't aspire to
anything different for her from what she has had; but I wanted her
to have more education, and wait until she was older. Marriage is
too hard work for a girl to begin at less than eighteen. If it is
Polly, and she has gone away with Hank Peters, they've no place to
go but his home; and if ever she thought I worked her too hard,
she'll find out she has played most of her life, when she begins
taking orders from Mrs. Amanda Peters. You know her! She never
can keep a girl more than a week, and she's always wanting one.
If Polly has tackled THAT job, God help her."
"Cheer up! We're in that delightful state of uncertainty where
Polly may be blacking the cook stove, like a dutiful daughter;
while Robert has decided that he'd like a divorce," said Nancy
Ellen.
"Nancy Ellen, there's nothing in that, so far as Robert is
concerned. He told me so the evening we came away," said Kate.
Nancy Ellen banged down a trunk lid and said: "Well, I am getting
to the place where I don't much care whether there is or there is
not."
"What a whopper!" laughed Kate. "But cheer up. This is my
trouble. I feel it in my bones. Wish I knew for sure. If she's
eloped, and it's all over with, we might as well stay and finish
our visit. If she's married, I can't unmarry her, and I wouldn't
if I could."
"How are you going to apply your philosophy to yourself?" asked
Nancy Ellen.
"By letting time and Polly take their course," said Kate. "This
is a place where parents are of no account whatever. They stand
back until it's time to clean up the wreck, and then they get
theirs -- usually theirs, and several of someone's else, in the
bargain."
As the train stopped at Hartley, Kate sat where she could see
Robert on the platform. It was only a fleeting glance, but she
thought she had never seen him look so wholesome, so vital, so
much a man to be desired.
"No wonder a woman lacking in fine scruples would covet him,"
thought Kate. To Nancy Ellen she said hastily: "The trouble's
mine. Robert's on the platform."
"Where?" demanded Nancy Ellen, peering from the window.
Kate smiled as she walked from the car and confronted Robert.
"Get it over quickly," she said. "It's Polly?"
He nodded.