Poor Miss Theodora! One walk on a public thoroughfare with a girl heretofore unknown to one's relatives need not imply the surrender of a young man's affections; but Ernest, so his aunt thought, was not like other young men. He would be sincere in a matter of this kind. If his interest in any girl had been so marked as to be a subject of comment for Ralph and Kate, it must be known to many other people. Yet why had Kate not spoken to her, as well as to her mother; or why had not Ernest himself suggested the direction in which his fancy was wandering? Many questions like these crowded Miss Theodora's mind, for which she had no satisfactory answer. Strangest of all,—and she could hardly account for her own reticence,—she said not a word to Kate nor to Ernest of all this that lay so near her heart. If Ben had been at home, she might have talked freely to him. He could have told whether or not Mrs. Digby's surmises were correct. But Ben had been in the West for a year and a half. If he had been at home, she thought, perhaps this would never have happened. Yet, after all, what was the "this" which so disturbed Miss Theodora's usually calm mind? What were the signs by which she recognized that Ernest had secrets which he did not confide to her?
XIX.
The signs, though few, to her were positive. Ernest had begun to take more interest in society. While studying diligently, he also found time for more or less gayety. In the left-hand corner of his top bureau drawer there was a heap of dance programmes and progressive euchre tally-cards. Kate had seen them one day when helping Miss Theodora put Ernest's room in order. She had given a scornful "No" when the former asked her if she had been at a dance whose date was indicated on a certain programme.
"Of course, I know you seldom go to dances, but still I thought perhaps—"
"Oh, Cousin Theodora, I haven't been at a dance this winter; and as to these parties that Ernest has been going to—there was a set of them, wasn't there? I really don't recognize the names of any of the managers."
Now this reply was not reassuring to Miss Theodora, who had a vague hope that Kate and Ernest met occasionally in society. Then Kate continued:
"Ernest is really growing very giddy. Just look at that heap of neckties. I should say some of them had not been worn twice, and then he has flung them down as if he didn't intend to wear them again."
Now in the midst of her railing, Kate stopped. In the back of the drawer, behind the neckties, she had caught sight of a photograph,—it was the face of a girl she had seen before,—and she closed the drawer with a snap that made Miss Theodora look up quickly from her task of dusting the books on Ernest's study table. Just then Diantha passed the door.
"I've been telling Miss Theodora," she cried, with the familiarity of an old servant, "I've been telling Miss Theodora that I believe Mast' Ernest's in love. He don't spend much time with us now, and I reckon 'tain't study that takes him out every evening. I shouldn't wonder if you knows more about it than we do,"—and Diantha rolled her large eyes significantly at Kate.
But Kate was silent, and Miss Theodora was silent, and Diantha, with a toss of the head and arms akimbo, passed on to her little attic room. Nor when she was gone did the two ladies speak to each other of the thing which lay so near their hearts.
Now, Miss Theodora, until driven thereto by Mrs. Digby, had never contemplated the possibility of Ernest's taking a tender interest in any one not approved by her. She had never resented Sarah Fetchum's addressing him by his first name, even after he had entered college and Sarah herself was almost through the Normal School. She could invite Sarah and her intimate friend, Estelle Tibbits, to take tea with her without any fear that Ernest would fall in love with either of them.
Unaware, apparently, of his aunt's solicitude, Ernest continued to mix a little play with the hard work of his last year of study. Miss Theodora, at least, had no reason to complain of neglect from him. He went with her to the Old West Church on Sunday morning as willingly as ever he had gone in the days of his childhood. Indeed, as a little boy she had often had to urge him unduly to go with her, and sometimes he would try to beg off with the well-worn plea that he "hated sermons." Later, as they sat in the high-backed pew which they shared with the Somersets, Miss Theodora would notice the boy's fair head moving restlessly from side to side.
As years passed on Ernest grew as fond as his aunt of the old church, with its plain white ceiling and gallery, supported by simple columns, and its tablets in honor of men of a bygone age. If sometimes on Sunday afternoons he went to Trinity Church, contented to stand for an hour in the crowded aisle to hear the uplifting words of the great preacher, he never made this later service an excuse for neglecting his aunt's church. In this, as in almost all other matters in which she had marked preferences, Ernest gave Miss Theodora little ground for complaint.
Toward the end of his Technology course Ernest made all his other interests bend to study. No longer had he any evening engagements to worry his aunt. He read late into the night. His thesis occupied most of his day, for it involved an immense amount of practical work in a factory out of town. As Miss Theodora observed his zeal, as she heard reports of his good standing in his class, she could but contrast this state of affairs with his unsatisfactory year at Harvard.