r head.

"Take him!" she said to the nurse--"take him! I can't bear it."

The nurse took him from her, and Kitty dried her tears with a kind of
fierceness.

"There is the post!" she said, springing up, as though determined to
throw off her grief as quickly as possible, while the nurse carried the
child away.

The footman brought the letters across the lawn. There were some for
Lady Tranmore and for Margaret French. In the general opening and
reading that ensued, neither lady noticed Kitty for a while. Suddenly
Margaret French looked up. She saw Kitty sitting motionless with a book
on her lap, a book of which the wrapper lay on the grass beside her. Her
finger kept a page; her eyes, full of excitement, were fixed on the
distant horizon of the park; the hurried breathing was plainly
noticeable under the thin bodice.

"Kitty--time to dress!" said Margaret, touching her.

Kitty rose, without a word to either of them, and walked quickly away,
her hands, still holding the book, dropped in front of her, her eyes on
the ground.

"Oh, Kitty!" cried Margaret, in laughing protest, as she stooped to pick
up the litter of Kitty's letters, some of them still unopened, which lay
scattered on the grass, as they had fallen unheeded from her lap.

But the little figure in the trailing skirts was already out of hearing.

* * * * *

At dinner Kitty was in her wildest spirits--a sparkling vision of
diamonds and lace, much beyond--so it seemed to Lord Grosville--what the
occasion required. "Dressed out like a comedy queen at a fair!" was his
inward comment, and he already rolled the phrases in which he should
describe the whole party to his wife. Like the expected Lord Parham, he
was there in sign of semi-reconciliation. Nothing would have induced
Kitty to invite her aunt; the memory of a certain Sunday was too strong.
On her side, Lady Grosville averred that nothing would have induced her
to sit at Kitty's board. As to this, her husband cherished a certain
scepticism. However, her resolution was not tried. It was Ashe, in fact,
who had invited Lord Grosville, and Lord Grosville, who was master in
his own house, and had no mind to break with William Ashe just as that
gentleman's company became even better worth having than usual, had
accepted the invitation.

But his patience was sorely tried by Kitty. After dinner she insisted on
table-turning, and Lord Grosville was dragged breathless through the