thought of it. She
knew, she wrote, that her praise meant absolutely nothing; but still,
she had sat up all night; she thought this, that, and the other; she was
full of enthusiasm most elaborately scratched out in places, but enough
was written plain to gratify William's vanity exceedingly. She was quite
intelligent enough to say the right things, or, even more charmingly,
to hint at them. In other ways, too, it was a very charming letter. She
told him about her music, and about a Suffrage meeting to which Henry
had taken her, and she asserted, half seriously, that she had learnt the
Greek alphabet, and found it "fascinating." The word was underlined. Had
she laughed when she drew that line? Was she ever serious? Didn't the
letter show the most engaging compound of enthusiasm and spirit and
whimsicality, all tapering into a flame of girlish freakishness, which
flitted, for the rest of the morning, as a will-o'-the-wisp, across
Rodney's landscape. He could not resist beginning an answer to her there
and then. He found it particularly delightful to shape a style which
should express the bowing and curtsying, advancing and retreating, which
are characteristic of one of the many million partnerships of men and
women. Katharine never trod that particular measure, he could not help
reflecting; Katharine--Cassandra; Cassandra--Katharine--they alternated
in his consciousness all day long. It was all very well to dress oneself
carefully, compose one's face, and start off punctually at half-past
four to a tea-party in Cheyne Walk, but Heaven only knew what would
come of it all, and when Katharine, after sitting silent with her usual
immobility, wantonly drew from her pocket and slapped down on the table
beneath his eyes a letter addressed to Cassandra herself, his composure
deserted him. What did she mean by her behavior?

He looked up sharply from his row of little pictures. Katharine was
disposing of the American lady in far too arbitrary a fashion. Surely
the victim herself must see how foolish her enthusiasms appeared in the
eyes of the poet's granddaughter. Katharine never made any attempt to
spare people's feelings, he reflected; and, being himself very sensitive
to all shades of comfort and discomfort, he cut short the auctioneer's
catalog, which Katharine was reeling off more and more absent-mindedly,
and took Mrs. Vermont Bankes, with a queer sense of fellowship in
suffering, under his own protection.

But within a few