"

"Do you really think so? Well, it is really no great matter."

"Then you shall not want Turner? Then I shall give her a holiday. Her
mother or her brother is ill, and she wants to go home. Servants'
relations always seem to be ill. It must cost them a good deal."

"No doubt. Will you come out with me? I have some shopping to do, and
your advice is always valuable."

"I shall be very pleased, and I will say I shall miss you when you
leave--miss you very much."

"Thank you," said Katherine, gently. "I believe you will as you say so."

Without fully believing Ada's rather exaggerated expressions of
gratitude and affection, Katherine was soothed and pleased by them. She
was so truthful herself that she was disposed to trust others, and the
hearty welcome offered her took off from the sense of loneliness which
had long oppressed her. Hers was too healthy a nature to encourage
morbid grief. To the last day of her life she remembered her mother with
tender, loving-regret; but the consolation of knowing that her later
days had been so happy, that she had passed away so peacefully, did much
toward healing the wounds which were still bleeding.

On the appointed Monday Colonel Ormonde made his appearance in the early
afternoon, and found Katherine quite ready to start. He was stouter,
louder, bluffer, than ever. When Miss Payne was introduced to him he
honored her with an almost imperceptible bow and a very perceptible
stare. Turning at once to Katherine, he exclaimed:

"What! in complete marching order already? I protest I never knew a
woman punctual before. But I always saw you were a sensible girl. No
nonsense about you. Why, my wife told me you were looking ill. I don't
see it. At any rate Castleford air will soon bring back your roses."

"I am feeling and looking better than when I came over, and Miss Payne
has taken such good care of me," said Katherine, who did not like to see
the lady of the house so completely over-looked.

"Ah! that's well. You know you are too precious a piece of goods to be
tampered with. I believe Bertie Payne is a nephew of yours," he added,
addressing Miss Payne--"a young fellow who was in my regiment three or
four years ago, the Twenty-first Dragoon Guards?"

"He is my brother," returned Miss Payne, stiffly.

"Ah! Hope he is all right. Have scarcely seen him since he has gone, not
to the dogs, but to the saints, which is much the same thing. Ha! ha!
ha!"

"Indeed it is not, Colone