ble low part of the town for a
man of fortune to live in! I wonder what Colonel Ormonde would say to
it?"

"I am sure I don't know," returned Kate, laughing. "Now come downstairs.
If you go on I will speak to my uncle, and follow you."

"I am sorry you have been annoyed," said Katherine, when having tapped
at the door, Mr. Liddell desired her to "come in." He was standing at an
old-fashioned bureau, the front of which let down to form a writing-desk
and enclosed a number of various-sized drawers. He had taken out several
packets of paper neatly tied with red tape and seemed to be rearranging
them.

"I am going to take my sister-in-law back to the omnibus; you may be
sure she will never intrude again."

"She shall not," he replied, turning to face her. Katherine thought how
ghastly pale and pinched he looked. "I see the sort of creature she
is--a doll that would sell her sawdust soul for finery and glitter; ay,
and the lives of all who belong to her for an hour of pleasure."

Katherine was shocked at his fierce, uncalled-for bitterness.

"She has lived with us for more than a year and a half, and we have
found her very pleasant and kind. Her children are dear, sweet things.
You should not judge her so harshly."

"You are a greater fool than I took you for," cried Mr. Liddell. "Go
take them away, and mind they do not come back."

Katherine hastened after her visitors and led them by a more direct
route than they had traversed in coming. It took them past a cake shop,
where she spent one of her few sixpences in appeasing her nephews'
appetite, which, at least, with Cecil, grew with what it fed upon, in
the matter of cakes.

The children, each holding one of her hands, chattered away, telling
many particulars of grannie and Jane, and the cat, to say nothing of a
most interesting gardener who came to cut the grass. To all of which
Katherine lent a willing ear. How ardently she longed to be at home with
the dear mother again! She had never done half enough for her. Ah, if
they only could be together again in Florence or Dresden as they used to
be!

Mrs. Fred Liddell kept almost complete silence--a very unusual case with
her--and only as she paused before following her little boys into the
omnibus did she give any clew to the current of her thoughts. "Should
Colonel Ormonde come on Saturday when you are with us--which is not
likely--do not say anything about that horrid old man's rudeness; one
does not like to con