I don't fancy he is rich. He is a sort of
relation of the Ormondes."

"I suspect he is a spendthrift, and would like _your_ money."

"Oh, very likely; but, my dear Miss Payne, you need not warn me; I am
quite sufficiently inclined to believe that the men who show me
attention are thinking more of what I have than what _I_ am. Believe me
it is not an agreeable frame of mind. Mr. De Burgh is a strange sort of
character. He amuses me; he is not a bit like a modern man. He doesn't
seem to think it worth while to conceal what he feels or thinks. There
is an odd well-bred roughness about him, if I may use such an
expression; but I greatly prefer him to Colonel Ormonde."

"Oh, you do? Colonel Ormonde is just an average man," added Miss Payne.

"I should hope the general average is higher; but I must not be
ill-natured. He has always been very kind to me."

This was a pleasant interlude to Katherine. She had succeeded in hushing
her heart to rest for a while, in banishing the thoughts which had long
tormented her. Nothing had comforted and satisfied her as did this
project of adopting her nephews. It is true she had not yet announced
it, but in her own mind she resolved that once they were under her wing,
she would not let them go again, unless indeed something quite
unforeseen occurred; nor did she anticipate any difficulties with their
mother. She would thus secure a natural legitimate interest in life, and
make a home, which to a girl of her disposition was essential. Yet she
knew well that in renouncing the idea of marriage she was denying one of
the strongest necessities of her nature. The love and companionship of a
man in whom she believed, for whom she could be ambitious, who would
link her with the life and movement of the outer world, who would be the
complement of her own being, was a dream of delight. Not that she felt
in the least unable to stand alone, or fancied she was too delicate to
take care of herself, but life without the love of another self could
never be full and perfect. She was too true a woman not to value deeply
the tenderness of a man; yet she had firmly resolved in justice to
herself, in fairness to any possible husband, to renounce that crown of
woman's existence. It was the only atonement she could make. Well, at
least her loving care of these dear little boys, who were in point of
fact motherless, would in some degree expiate her evil deed, and would
keep her heart warm and her mind healthy.