It was a divided stream in which the current of our story flowed during the days that followed, and a quiet stream it seemed at first after the dash and sparkle of the summer. A week more and Kate was busy with her books again, beginning her last year in the Rushmore High School. Tom Saxon was in school too, and Stella had flitted back to Boston, ready to settle down in that pretty studio of hers, with her art and her pupils. Esther alone was at leisure, but even for her the time passed swiftly. Aunt Elsie gave her a willing share in the light work of the household, and her grandfather claimed her more and more as a companion in all his goings, and a listener to his tales in the lengthening evenings.
Then there were the visits to Aunt Katharine, and few were the days in which they were omitted. The sight of the girl always brought a smile to the face of the lonely old woman. She was, if possible, more kind than ever, and yet, though Esther could not have explained it, she felt with a puzzled wonder that there was somehow a difference. Not for long had Aunt Katharine talked in the old passionate way of those peculiar views which she held so dear and vital. She seemed less eager than once to impress them, and Esther noted it, resenting more and more that fancy of her sister's that the proud-spirited old woman would have taken undue advantage of her influence, or have wished to put compulsion on another's life and thought.
It was a pity Kate did not know the true state of the case. As it was she sent an anxious thought every now and then in the direction of Aunt Katharine, and shook her fist, metaphorically speaking, in the face of those ideas which she imagined her to be always urging. In regard to anything else she refused to be solicitous over her sister, though Tom, who actually wrote a letter once a week for the first month, did his best to disturb her. The "nabob" was not only calling oftener than ever,--and this in the absence of Stella,--but the grandfather and Esther had been invited to visit at his summer home in Hartridge, a visit which they had made, and, according to reports on their return, enjoyed immensely.
"You can pay your money and take your choice, of course," Tom wrote derisively at the end of this interesting news, which he sent in advance of Esther herself, "but it's ancestors _or_ Esther, you can count on that. Maybe the young men out your way care more about their great-great-grandfathers than they do about girls, but in this part of the country it would be safer to bet on the girl."