turned Katherine, mastering her forces, though she felt ready to fly
and hide her guilty head in any corner. Errington felt that she was
unusually uneasy and uncomfortable with him, so made way the more
readily for De Burgh, who monopolized her for rest of the evening.

The next day was wet, and for a week the weather was unsettled, so that
Katherine had only one more lesson in driving before the party broke up,
and De Burgh too was obliged to leave.

But Katherine prolonged her stay. Charlie, in ardor for fishing, had
slipped into the river and caught a severe, feverish cold.

The way in which he clung to his auntie, the evident comfort he derived
from her presence, the delight he had in holding her cool soft hand in
his own burning little fingers, made him impossible for her to leave
him. By the time he was able to sit up and play with his brother, poor
Charlie was a pallid little skeleton, and his auntie bade him a tender
adieu, determined to lose no time in finding sea-side quarters for the
precious invalid.

CHAPTER XVII.

TAKING COUNSEL.

Miss Payne was busy looking over several cards which lay in a small
china dish on her work-table. It was early in the forenoon, and she
still wore a simple muslin cap and a morning gown of gray cashmere. Her
mouth looked very rigid and her eyes gloomy. To her enters her brother,
fresh and bright, a smile on his lips and a flower in his button-hole.

Miss Payne vouchsafed no greeting. Looking at him sternly, she asked,
"Well! what do you want?"

"To ask at what hour Miss Liddell arrives, and if I am to meet her at
the station."

"She is not coming to-day," snapped Miss Payne; "she is not coming till
Saturday."

"Indeed!" In a changed tone, "I hope she is all right?"

"It's hard to answer that. It seems one of the nephews has had a
feverish cold, and she did not like to leave him. I do not feel sure
there is not some real reason under this, for she adds that she is
anxious to see and consult me about some matter she has much at heart.
Perhaps there is a man at the bottom of it."

"I hope not," said Bertie, quietly, "unless she has found some former
friend at Castleford. I do not think Miss Liddell is the sort of girl to
accept a man on five or six weeks' acquaintance, and she has scarcely
been at Castleford so long."

"It is impossible to fathom the folly of women when a lover is in the
case."

"You are hard, Hannah."

"I do not care whether I am or not.