Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/87

 a shock of disappointment. No son or daughter of Old Lady Pratt was ever morbidly sentimental. Yet so much did Anson miss the voice he had listened for, that there would have been consolation, he thought, in the old familiar dirt streak. But alas! nothing was old and familiar. Everything was different.

And even the creature comforts seemed likely to forsake him, for scarcely had Mrs. Beach been in the house a week, when she was suddenly called away by the illness of her daughter.

Anson's heart gave a great bound at the news. Emmeline must come home now. She must come home at once. He would send for her. But where? How? She had given him no address. She had not written to him again. At first he thought he would go to Mrs. Joy's house and find out her whereabouts. But then his pride arose and he said to himself: "She has chosen to leave me in the lurch. She shall choose her own time for coming back."

Happily Katie proved quite equal to the emergency. She was housekeeper and servant in one. She seemed able to look after everything. The house, the kitchen, the master, and the boys.

One evening, soon after Mrs. Beach's departure, Anson went into the sitting-room where he found Katie lighting the lamp. In a glasson the table were the first crocuses of the season. The sight of them touched him. Emmeline had