"Do you really thing I'd better?
Well, then I will."
"That's a dear,"—kissing him.
"Be quick, Philly, for it's almost time they were here.
And please tell Dorry to make haste.
It's ever so long since he went upstairs."
"Dorry's an awful prink," remarked Phil, confidentially.
"He looks in the glass, and makes faces if he can't get his parting straight.
I wouldn't care so much about my clothes for a good deal.
It's like a girl.
Jim Slack says a boy who shines his hair up like that, never'll get to be president, not if he lives a thousand years."
"Well," said Katy, laughing: "it's something to be clean, even if you can't be president."
She was not at all alarmed by Dorry's recent reaction in favor of personal adornment.
He came down pretty soon, very spick and span in his best suit, and asked her to fasten the blue ribbon under his collar, which she did most obligingly; though he was very particular as to the size of the bows and length of the ends, and made her tie and retie more than once.
She had just arranged it to suit him when a carriage stopped.
"There they are," she cried.
"Run and open the door, Dorry."
Dorry did so; and Katy, following, found papa ushering in a tall gentleman, and a lady who was not tall, but whose Roman nose and long neck, and general air of style and fashion, made her look so.
Katy bent quite over to be kissed; but for all that she felt small and young and unformed, as the eyes of mamma's cousin looked her over and over, and through and through, and Mrs. Page said,—
"Why, Philip! is it possible that this tall girl is one of yours?
Dear me! how time flies!
I was thinking of the little creatures I saw when I was here last.
And this other great creature can't be Elsie?
That mite of a baby!
Impossible!
I cannot realize it.
I really cannot realize it in the least."
"Won't you come to the fire, Mrs. Page?" said Katy, rather timidly.
"Don't call me Mrs. Page, my dear. Call me Cousin Olivia."
Then the new-comer rustled into the parlor, where Johnnie and Phil were waiting to be introduced; and again she remarked that she "couldn't realize it."
I don't know why Mrs. Page's not realizing it should have made Katy uncomfortable; but it did.
Supper went off well.
The guests ate and praised; and Dr. Carr looked pleased, and said:
"We think Katy an excellent housekeeper for her age;" at which Katy blushed and was delighted, till she caught Mrs. Page's eyes fixed upon her, with a look of scrutiny and amusement, whereupon she felt awkward and ill at ease.
It was so all the evening.
Mamma's cousin was entertaining and bright, and told lively stories; but the children felt that she was watching them, and passing judgment on their ways.
Children are very quick to suspect when older people hold within themselves these little private courts of inquiry, and they always resent it.
Next morning Mrs. Page sat by while Katy washed the breakfast things, fed the birds, and did various odd jobs about the room and house.
"My dear," she said at last, "what a solemn girl you are!
I should think from your face that you were at least five and thirty.
Don't you ever laugh or frolic, like other girls your age?
Why, my Lilly, who is four months older than you, is a perfect child still; impulsive as a baby, bubbling over with fun from morning till night."
"I've been shut up a good deal," said Katy, trying to defend herself; "but I didn't know I was solemn."
"My dear, that's the very thing I complain of: you don't know it!
You are altogether ahead of your age.
It's very bad for you, in my opinion.
All this housekeeping and care, for young girls like you and Clover, is wrong and unnatural.
I don't like it; indeed I don't."
"Oh! housekeeping doesn't hurt me a bit," protested Katy, trying to smile.
"We have lovely times; indeed we do, Cousin Olivia."