w, but comfortable room upstairs,
where the bed was gorgeous with a patchwork quilt of many colors, and
permitting her lodgers to dine in a small parlor, which was her own
sitting-room.

The old woman had not had any "chance" that season, as she termed it,
and gladly agreed to take the young person recommended by her husband's
liberal employer. So Katherine walked back to write both to Bertie and
their _protegee_.

During her absence De Burgh had called, but left no message. And
Katherine felt a little sorry to have missed him, as she thought it
probable he would go on to town that afternoon, and she wanted to hear
some tidings of Errington, yet could hardly nerve herself to ask.

The evening was gloriously fine, and as Miss Payne did not like boating,
the pony-carriage was given up to her, the boys, and Miss North the
governess, for a long drive to a farm-house where the boys enjoyed
rambling about, and Miss Payne bought new-laid eggs.

When they had set out, Katherine took a white woolen shawl over her
arm--for even in July the breeze was sometimes chill at sundown--and
strolled along the road, or rather cart track, which led between the
cliffs and the sea to the boatman's cottage. She passed this, nodding
pleasantly to the sturdy old man, who was busy in his cabbage garden,
and pursued a path which led as far as a footing could be found, to
where the sea washed against the point. It was a favorite spot with
Katherine, who was tolerably sure of being undisturbed here. The view
across the bay was tranquilly beautiful; the older part of Sandbourne
only, with the pretty old inn, was visible from her rocky seat among the
bowlders and debris which had fallen from above, while the old tower at
the opposite point of the bay stood out black and solid against the
flood of golden light behind it. She sat there very still, enjoying the
air, the scene, the sweet salt breath of the sea, thinking intently of
Rachel Trant's experience, of her fatal weakness, of the unpitying
severity of that rule of law under which we social atoms are
constrained to live; of the evident fact that were we but wise and good
we might always be the beneficent arbiters of our own fate; that there
are few pleasures which have not their price; and after all, though she,
Katherine, had paid high for hers, it had not cost too much, considering
she had been groping in the dimness of imperfect knowledge. Oh, hew she
wished she had never attempted to act pr