Mrs. Hapgood leaned over and rested her hand on the girl's, as it lay on the arm of her chair. "I'm glad to have you say so, Katharine," said she. "For this year, I am to stand in place of a mother to you, you know, and I like to have you feel at home here." "I know all that," answered Katharine; "and I'm glad they sent me here, only it mixes me all up. When I was at home and kept hearing little bits about it, the parties and the flowers and the pretty gowns, I felt as if I couldn't wait to be old enough to be in it all. When I came away, mamma said I was to be here a year, and then, go home to come out, so I could be ready to be married at eighteen, as she did. A year is such a little while to wait that I thought I was almost there. But when I came here, I found the girls of my age acting like children, and having splendid times doing what I had always thought was silly, and not caring the least bit about society and all that. I shall just get used to this and like it, and then go back into the other once more." "But not in just the same way, I hope." "I suppose not, auntie; but it won't make so very much difference, after all." "Perhaps not," her aunt answered; "but it may make a little. If you hadn't come to us, you would never have seen the other side, that there are a few good times outside of the parties and the young men. And even if you go back into it when you go home, as you probably will, Katharine, it won't do any harm for you to have had a year to stop and think, and talk matters over, before plunging into the 'scrabble,' as you call it." "It seemed so queer, when I first came East," said Katharine, as she took up her work again, "to see you and Molly sit down and talk for an hour at a time. Mamma hasn't ever done it with us, only to joke with us, or ask about our lessons once in a while. But everything that comes up, Molly and Polly Adams say, 'Mamma says so,' or 'Mamma thinks so.'" She sewed steadily for a few moments, then she broke off, to ask, with an air of mock tragedy,-- "Mamma says she wants me to marry at eighteen; but what in the world should I do, auntie, if nobody should ask me?" "Not get married, I suppose," returned her aunt composedly. Katharine's face fell. "What! be an old maid, like Polly's Aunt Jane!" she exclaimed. "It isn't necessary that you should be like her, even if you shouldn't marry." And Mrs. Hapgood laughed at the horror in Katharine's tone. Then she went on, seriously, "Katharine, may I talk very plainly with you, just as if you were really my daughter?" "Please do, auntie." And Katharine drew her chair a little closer to her aunt's.