She was very stylish in her pretty traveling dress of gray, made under Mrs. Woodhull’s supervision, and nothing could be more becoming than her jaunty hat, tied with ribbons of blue, while the dainty kids, bought to match the dress, fitted her fat hands charmingly, and the little high-heeled boots of soft prunella were faultless in their style.  She was very attractive in her personal appearance, and the mental verdict of the four females regarding her intently was something as follows:  Mrs. Lennox detected unmistakable marks of the grand society she had been mingling in, and was pleased accordingly; Aunt Hannah pronounced her “the prettiest creeter she had ever seen;” Aunt Betsy decided that her hoops were too big and her clothes too fine for a Barlow; while Helen, who looked beyond dress, or style, or manner, straight into her sister’s soft, blue eyes, brimming with love and tears, decided that Katy was not changed for the worse.  Nor was she.  Truthful, loving, simple-hearted and full of playful life she had gone from home, and she came back the same—­never once thinking of the difference between the farmhouse and Mrs. Woodhull’s palace, or if she did, giving the preference to the former.

“It was perfectly splendid to get home,” she said, handing her gloves to Helen, her sunshade to her mother, her satchel to Aunt Hannah, and tossing her bonnet in the vicinity of the water pail—­from which it was saved by Aunt Betsy, who, remembering the ways of her favorite child, put it carefully in the press, examining it closely first and wondering how much it cost.

Deciding that “it was a good thumpin’ price,” she returned to the kitchen, where Katy, dancing and curveting in circles, scarcely stood still long enough for them to see that in spite of boarding school fare, of which she had complained so bitterly, her cheeks were rounded, her eyes brighter, and her lithe little figure fuller than of old.  She had improved in looks, but she did not appear to know it, or to guess how beautiful she was in the fresh bloom of seventeen, with her golden hair waving around her childish forehead, and her deep, blue eyes laughing so expressively with each change of her constantly varying face.  Everything animate and inanimate pertaining to the old house was noticed by her.  She kissed the kitten, squeezed the cat, hugged the dog, and hugged the little goat, tied to his post in the clover yard and trying so hard to get free.  The horse, to whom she fed handfuls of grass, had been already hugged.  She did that the first thing after strangling Uncle Ephraim as she alighted from the train, and some from the car window saw it, too, smiling at what they termed the charming simplicity of an enthusiastic schoolgirl.  Blessed youth! blessed early girlhood, surrounded by a halo of rare beauty!  It was Katy’s shield and buckler, warding off many a cold criticism which might otherwise have been passed upon her.