“Mother, how do you feel about Uncle Robert marrying again?” he asked suddenly.

Kate was too surprised to answer.  She looked at him in amazement.  Instead of answering, she asked him a question:  “What makes you ask that?”

“You know how that Mrs. Southey pursued him one summer.  Well, she’s back in Hartley, staying at the hotel right across from his office; she’s dressed to beat the band, she’s pretty as a picture; her car stands out in front all day, and to get to ride in it, and take meals with her, all the women are running after her.  I hear she has even had Robert’s old mother out for a drive.  What do you think of that?”

“Think she’s in love with him, of course, and trying to marry him, and that she will very probably succeed.  If she has located where she is right under his eye, and lets him know that she wants him very much, he’ll, no doubt, marry her.”

“But what do you think about it?” asked Adam.

“I’ve had no time to think,” said Kate.  “At first blush, I’d say that I shall hate it, as badly as I could possibly hate anything that was none of my immediate business.  Nancy Ellen loved him so.  I never shall forget that day she first told me about him, and how loving him brought out her beauty, and made her shine and glow as if from an inner light.  I was always with her most, and I loved her more than all the other girls put together.  I know that Southey woman tried to take him from her one summer not long ago, and that he gave her to understand that she could not, so she went away.  If she’s back, it means only one thing, and I think probably she’ll succeed; but you can be sure it will make me squirm properly.”

“I thought you wouldn’t like it,” he said emphatically.

“Now understand me, Adam,” said Kate.  “I’m no fool.  I didn’t expect Robert to be more than human.  He has no children, and he’d like a child above anything else on earth.  I’ve known that for years, ever since it became apparent that none was coming to Nancy Ellen.  I hadn’t given the matter a thought, but if I had been thinking, I would have thought that as soon as was proper, he would select a strong, healthy young woman, and make her his wife.  I know his mother is homesick, and wants to go back to her daughters and their children, which is natural.  I haven’t an objection in the world to him marrying a proper woman, at a proper time and place; but Oh, dear Lord, I do dread and despise to see that little Southey cat come back and catch him, because she knows how.”

“Did you ever see her, Mother?”

“No, I never,” said Kate, “and I hope I never shall.  I know what Nancy Ellen felt, because she told me all about it that time we were up North.  I’m trying with all my might to have a Christian spirit.  I swallowed Mrs. Peters, and never blinked, that anybody saw; but I don’t, I truly don’t know from where I could muster grace to treat a woman decently, who tried to do to my sister, what I know Mrs. Southey tried to do to Nancy Ellen.  She planned to break up my sister’s home; that I know.  Now that Nancy Ellen is gone, I feel to-night as if I just couldn’t endure to see Mrs. Southey marry Robert.”