It was not exactly unbecoming; nothing could be unbecoming to that fair, open face, which, surrounded by the white border, looked much like a sweet baby's face, except that it was older; but it was now so long since Katy had seen anything of the kind, and as habit is everything, she was not quite as well pleased with her headgear as in New York, where such things were common. Nevertheless, she would wear it to Linwood, and she went for her round straw hat, but, alas, the sun hat which made her look so frightfully young was not made for the widow's cap, and casting it aside, Katy threw a thick black veil over her head, and then stepping to the door of the room where her mother and Aunt Betsy were busy at work, she said: "I am going to Linwood, and shall stay there to dinner."
"In the name of the people, what has the child rigged herself out in that shape for?" Aunt Betsy exclaimed, letting fall the knife with which she was chopping cheese curd, and staring in astonishment. "I'd enough sight rather you'd frizzle your hair over rats, as Helen does, making herself look like some horned critter, than wear that heathenish thing. Why do you do it, Catherine?"
Catherine could not tell her, and laughing merrily at her aunt's animadversions against her own and Helen's style of hairdressing, she hurried away across the fields to Linwood. Aunt Betsy's surprise was in a measure shared by Helen, who, understanding Katy better, made no comments on her appearance, but smiled quietly at the air of matronly dignity which Katy had assumed, and which really sat so prettily upon her as she went from room to room to see what had been done, lingering longest in Morris' own apartment, opening from the library, where she made some alterations in the arrangement of the furniture, putting one chair a little more to the right, and pushing a stand or table to the left, just as her artistic eye dictated. By some oversight, no flowers had been put in there, but Katy gathered an exquisite bouquet and left it on the mantel, just where she remembered to have seen flowers when Morris was at home.
"He will he tired," she said. "He will lie down after dinner," and she laid a few sweet English violets upon the pillow, thinking their perfume might be grateful to him after the pent-up air of the hospital and cars. "He will think Helen put them there, or Mrs. Hull," she thought, as she stole softly out and shut the door behind her, glancing next at the clock, and feeling a little impatient that a whole hour must elapse before they could expect him.