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"An interval of three weeks—six months—ten years," as the case may be—"is supposed to have elapsed since the last act." This is a very commonly used expression in play-bills, and there seems no just cause or impediment why a story-teller should not avail himself of the same device to waft the patient reader over an uneventful period, during which the hero or heroine has been granted a "breathing space" between the ebb and flow of harrowing adventures and moving incidents.
It was, then, more than two years since the last chapter, and a still cold day at the end of February—still and somewhat damp—in one of the midland shires—say Clayshire. The dank hedges and sodden fields had a melancholy aspect, which seemed to affect a couple of horsemen who were walking their jaded, much-splashed horses along a narrow road, or rather lane, which led between a stretch of pasture-land on one side and a ploughed field on the other. The red coats and top-boots of both were liberally besprinkled with mud; even their hats had not quite escaped. Their steeds hung their heads and moved languidly; both horses and riders had evidently had a hard day's work. Presently the road sloped somewhat steeply to a hollow sheltered at one side by a steep bank overgrown with brushwood and large trees. The country behind the huntsmen was rather flat and very open, but from this point it became broken and wooded, sloping gradually up toward a distant range of low blue hills.
"Ha, you blundering idiot!" exclaimed the elder of the two men, pulling up his horse, a powerful roan, as he stumbled at the beginning of the descent. He was a big, heavy man with a red face, thick gray mustache, and small, angry-looking eyes. "He'll break my neck some day."
"Don't take away his character," returned his companion, laughing. "Remember he has had a hard run, and you are not a feather-weight." The speaker was tall (judging from the length of the well-shaped leg which lay close against his horse's side), large-framed, and bony; his plain strong face was tanned to swarthiness by exposure to wind and weather; moreover, a pair of deep-set dark eyes and long, nearly black mustache showed that he had been no fair, ruddy youth to begin with.
"No, by Jove!" exclaimed the first speaker. "I don't understand how it is that I grow so infernally stout. I am sure I take exercise enough, and live most temperately."
"Exercise! Yes, for five or six months; the rest of the twelve you do nothing. And as to living temperately, what with a solid breakfast, a heavy luncheon, and a serious dinner, you manage to consume a great deal in the twenty-four hours."
"Come, De Burgh! Hang it, I rarely eat lunch."
"Only when you can get it. Say two hundred and ninety times out of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year."
"I admit nothing of the sort. The fact is, what I eat goes into a good skin. Now you might cram the year round and be a bag of bones at the end of it."
"Thank God for all his mercies," replied De Burgh. "The fact is, you are a spoiled favorite of fortune, and in addition to all the good things you have inherited you pick up a charming wife who spoils you and coddles you in a way to make the mouth of an unfortunate devil like myself water with envy."
"None of that nonsense, De Burgh," complacently. "The heart of a benedict knoweth its own bitterness, though I can't complain much. If you hadn't been the reckless roue you are, you might have been as well off as myself."
De Burgh laughed. "You see, I never cared for domestic bliss. I hate fetters of every description, and I lay the ruin of my morals to the score of that immortal old relative of mine who persists in keeping me out of my heritage. The conviction that you are always sure of an estate, and possibly thirty thousand a year, has a terrible effect on one's character."
"If you had stuck to the Service you'd have been high up by this time, with the reputation you made in the Mutiny time, for you were little more than a boy then."
"Ay, or low down! Not that I should have much to regret if I were. I have had a lot of enjoyment out of life, however, but at present I am coming to the end of my tether. I am afraid I'll have to sell the few acres that are left to me, and if that gets to the Baron's ears, good-by to my chance of his bequeathing me the fortune he has managed to scrape together between windfalls and lucky investments. The late Baroness had a pot of money, you know."
"I know there's not much property to go with the title."
"A beggarly five thousand a year. I say, Ormonde, are you disposed for a good thing? Lend me three thousand on good security? Six per cent., old man!"
"I am not so disposed, my dear fellow! I have a wife and my boy to think of now."
"Exactly," returned the other, with a sneer. "You have a new edition of Colonel Ormonde's precious self."
"Oh, your sneers don't touch me! You always had your humors; still I am willing to help a kinsman, and I will give you a chance if you like. What do you say to a rich young wife—none of your crooked sticks?"
"It's an awful remedy for one's financial disease, to mortgage one's self instead of one's property; still I suppose I'll have to come to it. Who is the proposed mortgagee?"
"My wife's sister."
"Oh!"
The tone of this "Oh!" was in some unaccountable way offensive to Colonel Ormonde. "Miss Liddell comes of a very good old county family I can tell you," he said, quickly; "a branch of the Somerset Liddells; and when I saw her last she was the making of an uncommon fine woman."
"But your wife was a Mrs. Liddell, was she not?"
"Yes. This girl is her sister-in-law, really, but Mrs. Ormonde looks on her as a sister."
"Hum! She has the cash? I suppose you know all about it?"
"Well, yes, you may be sure of sixty or seventy thousand, which would keep you going till Lord de Burgh joins the majority."
"Yes, that might do; so 'trot her out.'"
"She is coming to stay with us in a week or two, before the hunting is quite over, so you will be down here still."
"I suspect I shall. The lease of the lodge won't be out till next September, and I may as well stay there as anywhere."
"Katherine Liddell is quite unencumbered; she has neither father nor mother, nor near relation of any kind; in fact Mrs. Ormonde and myself are her next friends, and in a few weeks she will be of age."
"All very favorable for her," said De Burgh, in his careless, commanding way. His tones were deep and harsh, and though unmistakably one of the "upper ten," there was a degree of roughness in his style, which, however, did not prevent him from being rather a favorite with women, who always seemed to find his attentions peculiarly flattering.
"Come," cried Ormonde, "let us push on. I am getting chilled to the bone, and we are late enough already."
He touched his horse with the spur, and both riders urged their steeds to a trot. Turning a bend of the road, they came suddenly upon a young lady accompanied by two little boys, in smart velvet suits. They were walking in the direction of Castleford—walking so smartly that the smaller of the two boys went at a trot. "Hullo!" cried Colonel Ormonde, pulling up for an instant. "What are you doing here? I hope the baby has not been out so late?"
"Baby has gone to drive with mother," chorussed the boys eagerly, as if a little awed.
"All right! Time you were home too," and he spurred after De Burgh.
"Mrs. Ormonde's boys?" asked the latter.
"Yes; have you never seen them?"
"I knew they existed, but I cannot say I ever beheld them before."
"Oh, Mrs. Ormonde never bores people with her brats."
"After they are out of infancy," returned the other, dryly.
A remark which helped to "rile" Colonel Ormonde, and he said little more till they reached their destination, and both retired to enjoy the luxury of a bath before dressing for dinner.
John de Burgh was a distant relation of Ormonde's, but having been thrown together a good deal, they seemed nearer of kin than they really were. De Burgh was somewhat overbearing, and dominated Colonel Ormonde considerably. He was also somewhat lawless by nature, hating restraint and intent upon his own pleasure. The discipline of military life, light as it is to an officer, became intolerable to him when the excitement and danger of real warfare were past, and he resigned his commission to follow his own sweet will.
Ultimately he became renowned as a crack rider, and one of the best steeple-chase jockeys on the turf in all competitions between gentlemen.
Mrs. Ormonde considered him quite an important personage, heir to an old title, and first or second cousin to a host of peers. It took many a day to accustom her to think of her husband's connections without a sense of pride and exultation, at which Ormonde laughed heartily whenever he perceived it. On his side De Burgh thought her a very pretty little toy, quite amusing with her small airs and graces and assumption of fine-ladyism, and he showed her a good deal of indolent attention, at which her husband was rather flattered.
The rector of the parish and one or two officers of Colonel Ormonde's old regiment, which happened to be quartered at a manufacturing town a few miles distant, made up the party at dinner that evening, and afterward they dropped off one by one to the billiard-room, till Mrs. Ormonde and De Burgh found themselves tete-a-tete .
"Do you wear black every night because it suits you down to the ground?" he asked, after very deliberately examining her from head to foot, when he had thrown down a newspaper he had been scanning.
"No; I am in mourning. Don't you see I have only black lace and jet, and a little crape?"
"Ah! and that constitutes mourning, eh? Well, there is very little mourning in your laughing eyes. Who is dead?"
"My mother-in-law."
"Your mother-in-law! I didn't know Ormonde——"
"I mean Mrs. Liddell; and I am quite sorry for her; she was wonderfully fond of me, and very kind."
"Why, what an angel you must be to fascinate a belle-mere ! Then the dear departed must be the mother of that Miss Liddell whom Ormonde was recommending to me this afternoon?"
"Who—my husband? How silly! She would not suit you a bit."
"Well, Ormonde thought her fortune might."
"Oh, her fortune! that is another thing. But she will not be so very rich if she fulfils her promise to settle part of her fortune on my boys. You see, if their poor father had lived, he would have shared their uncle's money with his sister. Now it is too hideously unjust that my poor dear boys should have nothing, and Katherine is very properly going to make it up to them."
"A young woman with a very high sense of justice. A good deal under the influence of her charming sister-in-law, I presume."
"Well, rather," returned Mrs. Ormonde, with an air of superiority. "Katherine is a mere enthusiastic school-girl, easily imposed upon. Both Colonel Ormonde and myself feel bound to look after her."
"Will she let you?" asked De Burgh, dryly.
"Of course she will. She knows nothing of the world, or at least very little, for she did not go much into society while they were abroad."
"Has she been abroad?"
"Yes; Mrs. Liddell was out of health when Katherine came into this money, and they have been away in Italy and Germany and Paris for quite two years. They were on their way home when Mrs. Liddell was taken ill. She died in Paris, of typhoid fever, just before Christmas."
"Two years in Italy, Germany, and Paris," repeated De Burgh; "she can't be quite a novice, then."
"Oh, she thinks she knows a great deal; and she is a nice girl, though curious and fanciful. I like her very much indeed, but I do not fancy you would. She is certainly obstinate. Instead of coming direct to us, and making her home here, as we were quite willing she should, she has gone to Miss Payne, a woman who, I believe, exists by acting chaperon to rich girls with no relations. Fancy, she has absolutely agreed to live with this Miss Payne for a year before consulting us, or asking our consent—or—or anything!"
"Is she not a minor?"
"She will be of age in a week or two, and it makes me quite nervous to think that other influences may prevent her keeping her promise to my boys. It is a mercy she did not marry some greedy foreigner while she was under age. Fortunately, men never seemed to take a fancy to Katherine."
"They will be pretty sure to take a fancy to her money."
"I think she lived so quietly people did not suspect her of having any. She is awfully cut up about the death of her mother, and does not go anywhere. I hope she will come down here next week. The only person I am afraid of is a horrid stiff old lawyer who seems to be her right hand man. He went over to Paris when Mrs. Liddell died, and did everything, instead of sending for Colonel Ormonde! I felt quite hurt about it."
"Ha! a shrewd old lawyer is bad to beat," said De Burgh, looking at his lively informant with half-closed eyes and an amused expression. "I wouldn't be too sure of your sister if I were you. Under such guidance the young lady may alter her generous intentions."
"Pray do not say such horrible things, Mr. De Burgh!" cried Mrs. Ormonde, growing very grave, even pathetic, and looking inclined to cry. "What would become of me—I mean us—if she changed her mind? 'Duke would be furious; he would never forgive me."
"Pooh! nonsense! a man would forgive a woman like you anything."
"A woman, perhaps, but not his wife," she returned, shaking her head. "But I won't think of anything so dreadful. I am quite sure Katie will never break her word; she is awfully true."
"That is rather an alarming character. You make me quite curious. What is she like—anything like you?"
"Not a bit. You know, she is only my sister-in-law. She is tall and large, and much more decided"—looking up in his face with a caressing smile.
"I understand. Not a delicate little darling, made for laughter and kisses, and sugar, and spice, and all that's nice, like you ." This with an insolent, admiring look. "Not a woman to fall in love with, but useful as a wife to keep one's household up to the collar."
"Really, Mr. De Burgh, you are very shocking! You must not say such things to me."
"Mustn't I? How shall you prevent me? I am a relative, you know. You can't treat me as a stranger."
"You are quite too audacious—" she was beginning, when a slim young cornet came back from the billiard-room.
"The Colonel wants you, Mrs. Ormonde," he said; "and you too, De Burgh. We are not enough for pool, and you play a capital game, Mrs. Ormonde."
"What are the stakes?" asked De Burgh, rising readily enough.
"Oh, I can't play well at all," said Mrs. Ormonde, following him with evident reluctance. "Certainly not when Colonel Ormonde is looking on."
"Oh, never mind him. I'll screen you from his hypercritical eyes," returned De Burgh, as he held the door open for her to pass out.
So it was, after a spell of heavenly tranquility, as Katherine and her mother were on their way to England, intending to make a home in or near London, Mrs. Liddell had been struck down with fever, and Katherine was left unspeakably desolate. Then she turned to her old friend Mr. Newton, and found him of infinite use and comfort.
A short space of numb inaction followed, during which she fully realized the loneliness of her position, and from which she roused herself to plan her future.
At the time Mrs. Liddell was first attacked with fever they had just renewed their acquaintance with a Miss Payne, whom they had met in Rome and at Berlin. She was not unknown in society, for she came of a good old county family, and was half-sister of the Bertie whose name has already appeared in these pages.
Their father, with an old man's pride in a handsome only son, had left the bulk of his fortune to Bertie, while Hannah, who had ministered to his comfort and borne his ill-humor, inherited only a paltry couple of hundred a year, with a fairly well furnished house in Wilton Street, Hyde Park. Her brother would have willingly added to this pittance, but she sternly refused to accept what did not of right belong to her. Bertie went with his regiment to India, whence he returned a wiser, a poorer, and a physically weaker man.
His sister, whose business instincts were much too strong to permit her wrapping up such a "talent" as a freehold house in the napkin of unfruitful occupation, looked round to see how she could best turn it to account. Accident threw in her way a girl of large fortune with no relations, whose guardians, thankful to find a respectable home for her, readily agreed to pay Miss Payne handsomely for taking charge of the orphan. Her first protegee married well, under her auspices, and from henceforth her house was rarely empty. Sometimes she accepted a roving commission and travelled with her charge, meanwhile letting her house in town, so making a double profit. It was on one of these expeditions that she was introduced to Mrs. and Miss Liddell. There was an air of sincerity and common-sense about the composed elderly gentlewoman which rather attracted the former, and, when they met again in Paris, Miss Payne came to Katie in her trouble and proved a brave and capable nurse; nor was she unsympathetic, though far from effusive. So, finding that Miss Payne's last young lady had left her, Katherine, with the approval of Mr. Newton, proposed to become her inmate for a year—an arrangement entirely in accordance with Miss Payne's wishes.
"I did not know you were acquainted with Miss Liddell," she said one evening when she was sitting with her brother, Katherine having retired early, as she often did. "It is quite a surprise to me."
"I can hardly say I am acquainted with her; I happened to be of some slight use to her once, and I met her after by accident, when we spoke; that is all."
"I wonder she did not mention it to me."
"I imagine she hardly knew my name." Miss Payne uttered an inarticulate sound between a h'm and a groan, by which she generally expressed indefinite dissent and disapprobation. Then she rose and walked to the dwarf bookcase at the end of the room to fetch her tatting. She was tall and slight. Following her, you might imagine her young, for her figure was good and her step brisk. Meeting her face to face, her pale, slightly puckered cheeks, closely compressed lips, keen light eyes, and crisp pepper-and-salt hair—Cayenne pepper, for it had once been red—suggested at least twenty or twenty-five additional years as compared with the back view.
Returning to her seat, she began to tat, slowing drawing each knot home with a reflective air.
"That woman is hunting her up," she exclaimed suddenly, after a few minutes' silence, during which Bertie looked thoughtfully at the fire—his quiet face, with its look of unutterable peace, the strongest possible contrast to his sister's hard, shrewd aspect.
"What woman?" asked, as if recalled from a dream.
"Mrs. Ormonde. There was a telegram from her this afternoon. She has been worrying Miss Liddell to go to them ever since she set foot in England; and as that won't do, she is coming up to-morrow to see what personal persuasion will do."
"I dare say Mrs. Ormonde is fond of her sister-in-law. She is too well off to have any mercenary designs."
"Is that all your experience has taught you?" (contemptuously). "If there is any truth in hand-writing, that Mrs. Ormonde is a fool. Her letter after Mrs. Liddell's death, which Katherine showed me because it touched her, was the production of an effusive idiot. I don't trust sentimentalists; they seldom have much honesty or justice. Katherine Liddell is a little soft too, but she is by no means so asinine as the others I have had. Wait, however—wait till some man takes her fancy; that is the divining-rod to show where the springs of folly lie."
"Miss Liddell is a good deal changed," returned Bertie, slowly. "She looks considerably older. No, that is not the right expression: I mean she seems more mature than when I saw her before. What she says is said deliberately; what she does is with the full consciousness of what she is doing; but she looks as if she had suffered."
"She has," said Miss Payne, with an air of conviction. "Her grief for her mother was, is, deep and real. I don't believe in floods of tears—they are a relief."
"Yes; and though she looks so pale and sad, she is not a whit less beautiful than she was."
"Beautiful!" repeated Miss Payne. "I rather admire her myself, but I don't think any one could call her beautiful."
"Perhaps not. There is so much expression in her face, such feeling in her eyes, that not many really beautiful women would stand comparison with her."
Miss Payne sniffed, and then she smiled. "She is not a commonplace young woman, though I fear she is easily imposed upon. I am afraid she may be snapped up by some plausible fortune-hunter."
Bertie frowned slightly. "I trust she may be guided to happiness with some good, God-fearing man," he said, and then, he bid his sister good-night somewhat abruptly.
Meantime, Katherine sat plunged in thought beside the fire in her bedroom. She was not given to weeping, but she was profoundly sad. To find herself again in London without her mother seemed to renew the intense grief which had indeed lost but little of its keenness. Never had a mother been more terribly missed. They had been such sympathetic friends, such close companions; they had had such a hearty respect for and appreciation of each other's qualities, such a pleasant comprehension of each other's different tastes, that it would be hard to fill the place of the dear, lost comrade with whom she had hitherto walked hand in hand. It soothed her to think of the delightful tranquility Mrs. Liddell had enjoyed for the last two years, of the untroubled sweetness of their intercourse, of her mother's last contented words: "I am quite happy, dear. Your future is secure, and you have never given me a moment's pain. We have had such delightful days together!"
How could she have borne to have seen a pained, anxious look—such a look as was once familiar to them—in those dear eyes, as they closed forever on this mortal scene! Oh, thank God for the heavenly security of those last days whatever the price she had paid for them!
Motherless, she was utterly desolate. It would be long, long before she could find any one to fill her mother's place, if she ever did. For the present she was satisfied to stay with Miss Payne, but she did not think she could ever love her. The idea of residing with Colonel Ormonde and his wife was distasteful. The most attractive scheme was to beg her little nephews from their mother, and take them to live with her. She was almost of age, and felt old enough to set up for herself. As she pondered on these things she felt bitterly that, rich or poor, a homeless woman is a wretched creature.
At last she went to bed, and lay for a while watching the fire-light as it cast flickering shadows, thinking of the tender, watchful love which had dropped away out of her life; and with the murmured words, "Dear, dear mother!" on her lips she fell asleep.
The next day broke bright and clear, though cold, and having kept Katherine at home all day, Mrs. Ormonde made her appearance in time for afternoon tea.
"My dear, dearest Katherine!" cried the little woman, fluttering in, all fur and feathers, in the richest and most becoming morning toilette, looking prettier and younger than ever, "I am so delighted to see you once more! Why have you staid in town, instead of coming straight to us?" and she embraced her tall sister-in-law effusively.
Katherine returned her embrace. For a moment or two she could not command her voice; the sight of the known childish face, the sound of the shrill familiar voice, brought a flood of sudden sorrow over her heart; but Mrs. Ormonde was not the sort of woman to whom she could express it.
"And I am very glad to see you , Ada! How well you are looking—even younger and fairer than you used!"
"Yes, I am uncommonly well; and you, dear, you are looking pale and ill and older! You will forgive me, but I am quite distressed. You must come down to Castleford at once."
"Thank you. Where are the boys? I hoped you would bring them."
"Oh, Colonel Ormonde thought they would be too troublesome for me in a hotel, so I left them behind. They were awfully disappointed, poor dears; but it is better you should come down and see them. Cecil is going to school after Easter, and I believe Charlie must go soon."
"I long to see them," said Katherine, assisting her visitor to take off her cloak.
"And I long to show you my new little boy," cried Mrs. Ormonde, drawing a chair to the fire, and putting her small, daintily shod feet on the fender. "He is a splendid child, amazingly forward for six months."
"I am glad you are so happy, Ada; I shall be pleased to make the acquaintance of my new nephew. I suppose I may consider him a sort of nephew?"
"My dear, of course ! Colonel Ormonde, as well as myself, is proud to consider you his aunt. Yes, I am very happy—though Ormonde is rather provoking sometimes; still, he is not half bad, and I know how to manage him. You are such a favorite with my husband, Katie. He admires you so much, I sometimes threaten to be jealous—why, what is the matter, dear?"
Katherine had suddenly covered her face with her handkerchief and burst into tears.
"Do not mind me, Ada!" she said, when she could speak. "It was just that name; no one has called me Katie except my mother and you, and the idea that I should never hear her speak again overpowered me for a moment."
Mrs. Ormonde was puzzled. Not knowing what to do in face of a great grief, she took out her own pocket-handkerchief politely.
"Of course, dear," she said; "it is quite natural. I was awfully cut up when I heard of your sad loss—and mine too, for I am sure Mrs. Liddell loved me like her own child; it was quite wonderful for a mother-in-law. I was afraid to speak to you about her, but I am sure she would like you to live with us; it is your natural home. And—and she would, I am sure, be pleased if she can know what is going on here below, to see that you fulfilled your kind intentions to her poor little grandsons." These last words with some hesitation.
Katherine kept silence, and still held her handkerchief to her eyes. So Mrs. Ormonde resumed: "A good, religious girl like you, Katherine, must feel that it is right to submit to the will of—"
"Yes, yes; I know all about that," interrupted Katherine, who was rather irritated than soothed by her sister-in-law's attempt at preaching; and recovering herself, she added: "I will not worry you with my tears. Tell me how the boys get on with Colonel Ormonde."
"Very well indeed, especially Cecil. 'Duke is very kind. They have a pony, and quite enjoy the country; but now that we have a boy of our own, we feel doubly anxious that Cis and Charlie should be permanently provided for; so do, dear, come back with me, and talk it all over with my husband. He is such a good man of business."
Katherine smiled faintly; she had not seen the drift of Mrs. Ormonde's remarks at first; there was no mistaking them now. A slightly mischievous sense of power kept her from setting her sister-in-law's mind at rest immediately.
"I do not think it necessary to consult with Colonel Ormonde, Ada, for I have quite made up my mind what to do. I think you may trust your boys to me. I must see Mr. Newton and arrange many matters, so I do not think I can go to you just yet. Then, I do not like to be in the way, and I could not mix in society just yet. Oh, I am not morbid or sentimental, but some months of seclusion I must have."
Mrs. Ormonde played with the tassel of the screen with which she sheltered her face from the fire while she thought: "What can she really mean to do? I wonder if she is engaged to any one, and waiting for him here? Once she is married, good-by to a settlement. She is awfully deep!" Then she said aloud, coaxingly, "Oh, we are very quiet home-staying people. We have a few men to stay now and again, but we never give big dinners. Tell me the truth, dear, are you not engaged? It would be but natural. A charming girl like you, with a large fortune, could not escape a multitude of lovers."
"You are wrong, Ada. I am not engaged, and I have no lovers. Of course a prince or two and a German graf did me the honor of proposing to annex my property, taking myself with it. Any well-dowered girl may expect such offers in Continental society; but they did not affect me."
"No, no; certainly not! It will be an Englishman. Quite right. And 'Duke must find out all about him. You know, dear, you would marry ever so much better from my house than you possibly could here , with a person who, after all, merely keeps a pension ."
"If Miss Payne could hear you!" said Katherine.
"Oh, I should never say it to her. But, Katherine, now is your time, when you are of age, and before you marry—now is the time to settle whatever you intend to settle on my poor little boys. I am sure you will excuse me for mentioning it, won't you? Between you and me, I don't think 'Duke would have married if he had not believed you would provide for Cis and Charlie. I don't know what would become of us if they were thrown on his hands."
"You need not fear," cried Katherine, quickly. "My nephews shall never cost Colonel Ormonde a sou."
"No, I was sure you wouldn't, dear, you are such a kind, generous creature, so unselfish. I do hate selfishness, and though the allowance you now give is very handsome—"
"I am to make it a little larger," put in Katherine, good-humoredly, as Mrs. Ormonde paused, not knowing how to finish her sentence. "Be content, Ada; you shall have due notice when I have made all my plans. I have a good deal to do, for I ought to make my will too."
"Your will! Oh yes, to be sure. I never thought of that. But if you marry it will be of no use."
"Until I am married it will be of use."
"And when do you intend to come to us?"
"Oh, some time next month."
"I hope so. I want to come up for a while after Easter, and am trying to get the Colonel to take a house; that depends on you a good deal. If you would join me in taking a house for three months he would agree at once."
"But I have just agreed to stay with Miss Payne for a year."
"How foolish! how short-sighted!" cried Mrs. Ormonde. "You will be just lost in a second-rate place like this."
"It will suit me perfectly. I only want rest and peace at present. I dare say it will not be so always."
"Well, I know there is no use in talking to you. You will go your own way. Only, as I am in town, do come to my dressmaker's. Though you had your mourning in Paris, do you know, you look quite dowdy. You'll not mind my saying so?"
"I dare say I do. Miss Payne got everything for me."
"Oh, are you going to give yourself into her hands blindfold? I am afraid she is a designing woman. You really must get some stylish dresses. You must do yourself justice."
"I have as many as I want, and there is no need of wasting money, even if you have a good deal. How many poor souls need food and clothes!"
"Oh, Katherine, if you begin to talk in that way, you will be robbed and plundered to no end."
"I hope not. Here is tea, and Miss Payne. I will come and see you to-morrow early, and bring some little presents for the boys."