Free Girl to Come Home To by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

going down behind the barn to see the little new colt. I have to take some feed down to the colt’s mother.”
    Mother Graeme grinned mischievously, showing how much she resembled her two boys. “Okay,” she said calmly, “I’ll try her, but you just watch her face when I do.”
    So Kathleen walked to the front door, which was now open about four inches and being banged impatiently, indignantly back and forth against the chain.
    Kathleen with firm hand closed the door, released the chain, and then opened it, so quickly that the indignant semi-relative was flung almost bodily into the hall.
    “Why, the very idea!” said Cousin Louella indignantly. “Whoever put that thing on, I should like to know?”
    “Oh, didn’t you know we use the chain now?” asked Kathleen coolly. “I guess nobody thought to take it off this morning. Won’t you come in, Cousin Louella? Mother’s in the dining room sewing. Just go right in there. I think Hetty is going to sweep in the living room so it will be pleasanter sitting in the dining room.”
    “Oh,
really
?” said the cousin with a lofty insulted air. “Well, of course if your mother is there. But it was really the boys I wanted to see. More especially Rodney. Where is he?”
    “Why, I’m not sure. He went out to the garage, and I think I saw the car go out. You know you can’t keep track of the boys once they get in their hometown, after their long separation.”
    “Rodney wouldn’t by any chance have gone to see his old friend Jessica, would he?” asked the cousin pryingly, with an insinuating smile, as if she had a secret that Kathleen probably understood.
    “Why no,” said Kathleen calmly. “I don’t think he went there. I don’t think he has much to do with her anymore. You knew she is married, didn’t you?”
    “Oh, yes, I knew she was married, poor dear. But I feel so sorry for her and for Rodney, too. Such a pity, a nice suitable match like that broken up. What a foolish boy he was to let that happen. Of course what he ought to have done was to have married her before he went away. Then this couldn’t have happened. But I suppose your mother blocked that. She always was opposed to having her children grow up.”
    “I beg your pardon, Cousin Louella, I don’t quite understand you. Mother had nothing whatever to do with the breaking of that engagement. And I don’t think we ought to talk about it, do you? Rodney would be furious, and I shouldn’t think Jessica would care for such comments. At least
I
wouldn’t. She’s a married woman, you know.”
    “Yes, poor dear, I’m aware of that. I feel so very sorry for her. But there are ways of getting out of a situation like that of course.”
    “Is that the way you look at it, Cousin Louella? I don’t think so. But here comes Mother. See what pretty aprons she is making. Here, sit down in this little rocker in the bay window. I think the view of the yard all snow is pretty out there, don’t you? And Hetty is making hot doughnuts. Shall I get you one, or do you think it is too soon after breakfast?”
    “Yes, I certainly would like some doughnuts. But I’d want a cup of coffee with them. Wasn’t there some left from breakfast that Hetty could heat up for me?”
    “I’ll see,” said Kathleen, and she vanished grimly into the kitchen. “The
idea
!” she muttered to Hetty. “Doughnuts and coffee, when she probably ate a huge breakfast at the hotel. Well, perhaps she won’t attempt to stay to lunch if I feed her now.”
    So Kathleen got ready three hot doughnuts and a cup of coffee and brought them on a tray to the guest-cousin and then vanished to her dusting lest more would be demanded.
    Meantime Hetty was filling two large platters with doughnuts already fried and hiding them on the top shelf of the pantry, where no snooping relative could find them.
    So the guest settled back in her rocker with her coffee and doughnuts to enjoy herself and see how much information she could pry out of Mother