"Why, you must be crazy!" said Nancy Ellen.
"Would I be any crazier than you, when you wanted to go?" asked
Kate.
"But you were here to help Mother," said Nancy Ellen.
"And you are here to help her now," persisted Kate.
"But I've got to fix up my clothes for the County Institute," said
Nancy Ellen, "I'll be gone most of the summer."
"I have just as much right to go as you had," said Kate.
"Father and Mother both say you shall not go," answered her
sister.
"I suppose there is no use to remind you that I did all in my
power to help you to your chance."
"You did no more than you should have done," said Nancy Ellen.
"And this is no more than you should do for me, in the
circumstances," said Kate.
"You very well know I can't! Father and Mother would turn me out
of the house," said Nancy Ellen.
"I'd be only too glad if they would turn me out," said Kate. "You
can let me have the money if you like. Mother wouldn't do
anything but talk; and Father would not strike you, or make you
go, he always favours you."
"He does nothing of the sort! I can't, and I won't, so there!"
cried Nancy Ellen.
"'Won't,' is the real answer, 'so there,'" said Kate.
She went into the cellar and ate some cold food from the cupboard
and drank a cup of milk. Then she went to her room and looked
over all of her scanty stock of clothing, laying in a heap the
pieces that needed mending. She took the clothes basket to the
wash room, which was the front of the woodhouse, in summer; built
a fire, heated water, and while making it appear that she was
putting the clothes to soak, as usual, she washed everything she
had that was fit to use, hanging the pieces to dry in the
building.
"Watch me fly!" muttered Kate. "I don't seem to be cutting those
curves so very fast; but I'm moving. I believe now, having
exhausted all home resources, that Adam is my next objective. He
is the only one in the family who ever paid the slightest
attention to me, maybe he cares a trifle what becomes of me, but
Oh, how I dread Agatha! However, watch me take wing! If Adam
fails me I have six remaining prospects among my loving brothers,
and if none of them has any feeling for me or faith in me there
yet remain my seven dear brothers-in-law, before I appeal to the
tender mercies of the neighbours; but how I dread Agatha! Yet I
fly!"