Kate finished her school in the spring, then went for a visit with
Nancy Ellen and Robert, before George Holt returned. She was
thankful to leave Walden without having seen him, for she had
decided, without giving the matter much thought, that he was not
the man she wanted to marry. In her heart she regretted having
previously contracted for the Walden school another winter because
she felt certain that with the influence of Dr. Gray, she could
now secure a position in Hartley that would enable her either to
live with, or to be near, her sister. With this thought in mind,
she tried to make the acquaintance of teachers in the school who
lived in Hartley and she soon became rather intimate with one of
them.
It was while visiting with this teacher that Kate spoke of
attending Normal again in an effort to prepare herself still
better for the work of the coming year. Her new friend advised
against it. She said the course would be only the same thing over
again, with so little change or advancement, that the trip was not
worth the time and money it would cost. She proposed that Kate go
to Lake Chautauqua and take the teachers' course, where all spare
time could be put in attending lectures, and concerts, and
studying the recently devised methods of education. Kate went
from her to Nancy Ellen and Robert, determined at heart to go.
She was pleased when they strongly advised her to, and offered to
help her get ready. Aside from having paid Agatha, and for her
board, Kate had spent almost nothing on herself. She figured the
probable expenses of the trip for a month, what it would cost her
to live until school began again, if she were forced to go to
Walden, and then spent all her remaining funds on the prettiest
clothing she had ever owned. Each of the sisters knew how to buy
carefully; then the added advantage of being able to cut and make
their own clothes, made money go twice as far as where a
dressmaker had to be employed. When everything they had planned
was purchased, neatly made, and packed in a trunk, into which
Nancy Ellen slipped some of her prettiest belongings, Kate made a
trip to a milliner's shop to purchase her first real hat.
She had decided on a big, wide-brimmed Leghorn, far from cheap.
While she was trying the effect of flowers and ribbon on it, the
wily milliner slipped up and with the hat on Kate's golden crown,
looped in front a bow of wide black velvet ribbon and drooped over
the brim a long, exquisitely curling ostrich plume. Kate had one
good view of herself, before she turned her back on the
temptation.
"You look lovely in that," said the milliner. "Don't you like
it?"