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Already, for better or for worse, Catie's influence upon him was a strong one; stronger, Mrs. Brenton admitted to herself with a woful little sigh, than that of his own mother, despite the ill-concealed anxiety and the doting love that only a mother can give, and then only to an only son. Between the two of them, herself and Catie, Catie's will was the stronger law.
He carried himself more alertly, too, as if, for the future, life were too full of purpose to permit of any indecision or delay. Of his trouble, he said singularly little. "Poor Catie! She died, loyal to me, and happy in her belief," he told Reed briefly. "It was the end she would have chosen for herself.
To her extreme surprise, Scott said them first to her. "Mother," he said, a little bit imperiously considering his age; "no matter now about Catie. I want to talk to you about " "About myself." Her nervousness increased. "Take some more gravy, Scott," she urged him hurriedly. "You'd better dip it on your bread as soon as you can; it gets cold so soon, these winter mornings."
Between the two of them, however, there was this one essential difference: Scott's forecastings were vague and rosy dreams, Catie's were concrete plans. None the less and despite that difference, from that time onward, it was tacitly agreed between the children that Scott would one day be a minister, with Catie for his wife.
Were her manners, like the cut and colour of her garments, a thought too pronounced and noticeable? Was her voice a little bit too loud, her manner too assured? Or was it that those other girls beside her elbow were effete and colourless? Scott struggled to repress his doubts, while he watched the gay assurance with which Catie answered to Reed Opdyke's chaff.
Brenton might lack certain social frills and furbelows; but no one could look into her honest face above the trim little black lace tucker, without realizing that she was of good, old-fashioned stock which never would degenerate. No one but a lady born could take herself so simply. Scott read Opdyke's approval in his eyes, the while he himself stood apart and talked to Catie.
"Of course, you were very rude to treat me the way you did, the other day; and I hope you are sorry." Scott shut his teeth, although he nodded shortly. He had not enjoyed the three-day frost between himself and Catie; but he was sure that, in the final end, he had been in the right of it, even if he had been a little unceremonious in pressing the matter home on her attention.
Scott was so busy in so many ways that he seemed to Catie to spare her only the smaller fragments of his time; and her two new gowns, which at home had been tried on amid the plaudits of the girl friends bidden to the private view, sank into insignificance beside the round dozen or more frocks which each of the other commencement guests was wearing in bewildering succession.
I'd meant to call our baby by it, really call her by it, not by some uncouth nickname. Yes. I know I was baptised Catie; but so you were baptised Walter. We both of us, you see, have something to forget. Any way, I am determined to save the baby so much, so I want to take plenty of time to choose a good name for him. There's no hurry, for the present." She was silent, for a moment.
She impressed it on the mind of Catie, also, that it was her girlish duty to herd her immature companion into the proper fold; that her young and sprightly charms, her girlish loyalty should be to her as a shepherd's crook, the guiding wand to be applied in moments of extremest peril. After her lights, Mrs. Brenton was canny.
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