Page:Wha Katy Did Next - Coolidge (1886).djvu/296

 candlesticks, and bunches of dusty paper flowers filled the vases which stood on either side of them. A faded silk cushion lay on the step. Doubtless the Bishop had often knelt there. Katy felt as if she were the first person to enter the place since he went away. Her common-sense told her that in a hotel bedroom constantly occupied by strangers for years past, some one must have discovered the door and found the little oratory before her; but common-sense is sometimes less satisfactory than romance. Katy liked to think that she was the first, and to "make believe" that no one else knew about it; so she did so, and invented legends about the place which Amy considered better than any fairy story.

Before he left them Lieutenant Worthington had a talk with his sister in the garden. She rather forced this talk upon him, for various things were lying at her heart about which she longed for explanation; but he yielded so easily to her wiles that it was evident he was not averse to the idea.