Linda knew that if John Gilman were well acquainted with Eileen, he could not come any nearer to loving her than she did. Such an idea as loving Eileen never had entered Linda's thoughts. To Linda, Eileen was not lovable. That she should be expected to love her because they had the same parents and lived in the same home seemed absurd. She was slightly disappointed, on reaching home, to find that Eileen was not there.
"Will the lady of the house dine with us this evening? she asked as she stood eating an apple in the kitchen.
"She didn't say," answered Katy. "Have ye had it out about last night yet?""No," answered Linda. "That is why I was asking about her. Iwant to clear the atmosphere before I make my new start in life.""Now, don't ye be going too far, lambie," cautioned Katy "Ye young things make such an awful serious business of life these days. In your scramble to wring artificial joy out of it you miss all the natural joy the good God provided ye.""It seems to me, Katy," said Linda slowly, "that you should put that statement the other way round. It seems that life makes a mighty serious business for us young things, and it seems to me that if we don't get the right start and have a proper foundation life Is going to be spoiled for us. One life is all I've got to live in this world, and I would like it to be the interesting and the beautiful kind of life that Father lived."Linda dropped to a chair.
"Katy," she said, leaning forward and looking intently into the earnest face of the woman before her, "Katy, I have been thinking an awful lot lately. There is a question you could answer for me if you wanted to.""Well, I don't see any raison," said Katy, "why I shouldn't answer ye any question ye'd be asking me."Linda's eyes narrowed as they did habitually in deep thought She was looking past Katy down the sunlit spaces of the wild garden that was her dearest possession, and then her eyes strayed higher to where the blue walls that shut in Lilac Valley ranged their peaks against the sky. "Katy," she said, scarcely above her breath, "was Mother like Eileen?"Katy stiffened. Her red face paled slightly. She turned her back and slowly slid into the oven the pie she was carrying.
She closed the door with more force than was necessary and then turned and deliberately studied Linda from the top of her shining black head to the tip of her shoe.
"Some," she said tersely.
"Yes, I know 'some'," said Linda, "but you know I was too young to pay much attention, and Daddy managed always to make me so happy that I never realized until he was gone that he not only had been my father but my mother as well. You know what I mean, Katy.""Yes," said Katy deliberately, "I know what ye mean, lambie, and I'll tell ye the truth as far as I know it. She managed your father, she pampered him, but she deceived him every day, just about little things. She always made the household accounts bigger than they were, and used the extra money for Miss Eileen and herself--things like that. I'm thinkin' he never knew it.
I'm thinking he loved her deeply and trusted her complete. Iknow what ye're getting at. She was not enough like Eileen to make him unhappy with her. He might have been if he had known all there was to know, but for his own sake I was not the one to give her away, though she constantly made him think that I was extravagant and wasteful in me work."Linda's eyes came back from the mountains and met Katy's straightly.
"Katy," she said, "did you ever see sisters as different as Eileen and I are?""No, I don't think I ever did," said Katy.
"It puzzles me," said Linda slowly. "The more I think about it, the less I can understand why, if we are sisters, we would not accidentally resemble each other a tiny bit in some way, and Imust say I can't see that we do physically or mentally.""No," said Katy, "ye were just as different as ye are now when Icame to this house new and ye were both little things.""And we are going to be as different and to keep on growing more different every day of our lives, because red war breaks out the minute Eileen comes home. I haven't a notion what she will say to me for what I did last night and what I am going to do in the future, but I have a definite idea as to what I am going to say to her.""Now, easy; ye go easy, lambie," cautioned Katy.
"I wouldn't regret it," said Linda, "if I took Eileen by the shoulders and shook her till I shook the rouge off her cheek, and the brilliantine off her hair, and a million mean little subterfuges out of her soul. You know Eileen is lovely when she is natural, and if she would be straight-off-the-bat square, Iwould be proud to be her sister. As it is, I have my doubts, even about this sister business.""Why, Linda, child, ye are just plain crazy," said Katy. "What kind of notions are you getting into your head?""I hear the front door," said Linda, "and I am going to march straight to battle. She's going up the front stairs. I did mean to short-cut up the back, but, come to think of it, I have served my apprenticeship on the back stairs. I believe I'll ascend the front myself. Good-bye, darlin', wish me luck."Linda swung Katy around, hugged her tight, and dropped a kiss on the top of her faithful head.
"Ye just stick right up for your rights," Katy advised her.
"Ye're a great big girl. 'Tain't going to be long till ye're eighteen. But mind your old Katy about going too far. If ye lose your temper and cat-spit, it won't get ye anywhere. The fellow that keeps the coolest can always do the best headwork.""I get you," said Linda, "and that is good advice for which Ithank you."
