"I have been so lonely, with no company but the rain," he said, pushing the chair a little toward her, and bidding her sit near the fire, where she could dry her feet.
Katy obeyed, and sat down so near to him that had he chose he might have touched her head, which this day was minus cap, or even net, the golden hair combed back and fastened in heavy coils low down on her neck, giving to her a very girlish appearance, as Morris thought, for he could see her now, and while she dried her feet he looked at her eagerly, wondering that the fierce storm she had encountered had left so few traces upon her face. Just about the mouth there was a deep-cut line, but this was all; the remainder of the face was fair and smooth as in her early girlhood, and far more beautiful, just as her character was lovelier, and more to be admired.
Morris had done well to wait if he could win her now. Perhaps he thought so, too, and this was why his spirits became so gay as he kept talking to her, suggesting at last that she should stay to tea. The rain was falling in torrents when he made the proposition. She could not go then, even had she wished it, and though it was earlier than his usual tea time, Morris at once rang for Mrs. Hull, and ordered that tea be served in there as soon as possible.
"I ought not to stay. It is not proper, and my cap at home, too," Katy kept thinking as she fidgeted in her chair, and watched the girl setting the table so cosily for two, and occasionally deferring some debatable point to her as if she were mistress there.
"Shall we have some thin slices of cold chicken to go with the jelly?" she asked, looking at Katy, who answered in the affirmative, wishing she was at home, and deploring again the absence of her cap.
"You can go now, Reekie," Morris said, when the boiling water was poured into the silver kettle, and tea was on the table. "If we need you we will ring."
With a vague wonder as to who would toast the doctor's bread and butter it, Reekie departed, and the two were left together. It was Katy who toasted the bread, kneeling upon the marble hearth, nearly blistering her hands, burning her face and scorching the bread in her nervousness at the novel position in which she so unexpectedly found herself. It was Katy, too, who prepared Morris' tea, and tried to eat, but could not. She was not hungry, she said, and the custard was the only thing she tasted, besides the tea, which she sipped at frequent intervals, so as to make Morris think she was eating more than she was. But Morris was not deceived, nor yet disheartened. Possibly she suspected his intention, and if so, the sooner he reached the point the better. So when the tea equipage was put away, and she began again to speak of going home, he said: "No, Katy, you can't go yet till I have said what's in my mind to say," and laying his hand upon her shoulder he made her sit down beside him and listen while he told her the love he had borne for her long before she knew the meaning of that word as she knew it now--of the struggle to keep that love in bounds after its indulgence was a sin, of his temptations and victories, of his sincere regret for Wilford, and of his deep respect for her grief, which made her for a time as a sister to him. But that time had passed. She was not his sister now, nor ever could be again. She was Katy, dearer, more precious, more desired even than before another called her wife, and he asked her to be his, to come up there to Linwood and live with him, making the rainy days brighter, balmier, than the sunniest had ever been, and helping him in his work of caring for the poor and sick around them.