Kates Ordeal | Page 8

will soon forget your old-fashioned, countrified notions about Sunday schools and Bible-classes. They were all very well, I daresay, for the country people could go out and get a breath of fresh air any day in the week; but you can't here, and so we are obliged to manage our Sundays the best way we can."
"Yes--but--but I should like to go to church next Sunday. Mother asked me in her letter this morning to tell her whether I had found a nice Bible-class, and where I went to church."
"Oh! well, we'll go to church for once, just to satisfy your mother, Kate, only she can't expect us to go every Sunday."
Kate thought she had better be content with the small victory she had gained, and perhaps, by-and-by, she might be able to persuade Marion to go to Bible-class with her, and thus put an end to these Sunday excursions. In the meantime, she must go with her cousins for a walk or a pleasure trip on a Sunday afternoon, or else Marion would refuse to accompany her to school.
It seemed strange to Kate, at first, to be walking about in the noisy streets, or gazing at the fashionable, gaily-dressed people in the Park, but she soon began to enjoy discussing this one's dress and that one's bonnet almost as much as her cousins did, and her younger cousin said, "You will soon wear off all your country rust, Kate. How could you have lived in that pokey place so long?"
"Oh, it wasn't pokey a bit," said Kate warmly; "I had lots of friends there, and that is what we are not allowed to have here. Don't you find that rule of Mrs. Maple's rather hard to keep sometimes, Marion?" she added.
"What rule?" said Marion.
"About saying as few words as possible to the customers in the shop; Mrs. Maple told me she was most strict about it."
"Well, I suppose she is," said Marion, carelessly; "at least, just at first;" but they were joined at this moment by two young men, whom Kate instantly recognised as being frequent visitors at the shop.
She cast an inquiring glance at Marion, as one of them said, "This is the cousin you told me was coming to help you in the shop, I suppose?"
"I have been there all the week, and seen you several times, I think," said Kate quickly, at which they all burst into a loud laugh.
A few minutes afterwards they were joined by some more friends, who were likewise customers at the shop, as Kate's eyes instantly told her, and she wondered whether her cousin did keep the rule about friends and customers, as strictly as Mrs. Maple supposed.
Before the next week was over, she found that these friends of Marion's came in for buns or pastry when Mrs. Maple was sure to be out of the way, and a good deal of laughing and chatting went on between them.
"Of course I don't keep such a stupid rule as that, Kate, how can I?" said her cousin afterwards, when they were talking about this. "It would not do to laugh and chat with the old lady in the way, but where is the harm I should like to know?"
Kate shook her head. "Of course I don't understand business," she said, "but I thought it was a strange rule, myself."
"A strange rule! It is the most stupid and absurd one that could be thought of. Some people come into the shop every day, and to think I am only to say 'yes' and 'no' to them is ridiculous."
"But all those young men you met on Sunday--surely you knew some of them in a different way than just coming into the shop?" said Kate.
"No, I don't," replied her cousin; "I never saw them until I came here," she added, laughing.
Kate looked a little disappointed. "I--I thought you knew them so well, they seemed so friendly--that they must be friends of your brothers--that your father knew their friends and all about them," stammered Kate.
"You little goose! what difference can it make to us, whether my father and grandfather knew theirs, or whether we met last week for the first time?" said Marion, laughing.
But Kate was not satisfied. "I wish I could talk to mother about it," she said, half aloud.
"For patience sake don't look so solemn and talk so seriously about a little thing like that, and as to telling your mother everything, why no sensible girl of any spirit would think of such nonsense, for she would know that her mother could not understand about things she had never seen or heard of. Now, don't be silly, Kate, and make your mother uncomfortable about you. We went to church last Sunday on purpose that you might tell her we had been, and after that she