and
she had never once guessed that he loved children. She looked at the
queer glow of exaltation in Cassandra's eyes, through which she was
beholding the true spirit of a human being, and wished that she would
go on talking about William for ever. Cassandra was not unwilling to
gratify her. She talked on. The morning slipped away. Katharine scarcely
changed her position on the edge of her father's writing-table, and
Cassandra never opened the "History of England."

And yet it must be confessed that there were vast lapses in the
attention which Katharine bestowed upon her cousin. The atmosphere
was wonderfully congenial for thoughts of her own. She lost herself
sometimes in such deep reverie that Cassandra, pausing, could look at
her for moments unperceived. What could Katharine be thinking about,
unless it were Ralph Denham? She was satisfied, by certain random
replies, that Katharine had wandered a little from the subject of
William's perfections. But Katharine made no sign. She always ended
these pauses by saying something so natural that Cassandra was deluded
into giving fresh examples of her absorbing theme. Then they lunched,
and the only sign that Katharine gave of abstraction was to forget
to help the pudding. She looked so like her mother, as she sat there
oblivious of the tapioca, that Cassandra was startled into exclaiming:

"How like Aunt Maggie you look!"

"Nonsense," said Katharine, with more irritation than the remark seemed
to call for.

In truth, now that her mother was away, Katharine did feel less sensible
than usual, but as she argued it to herself, there was much less need
for sense. Secretly, she was a little shaken by the evidence which the
morning had supplied of her immense capacity for--what could one call
it?--rambling over an infinite variety of thoughts that were too foolish
to be named. She was, for example, walking down a road in Northumberland
in the August sunset; at the inn she left her companion, who was Ralph
Denham, and was transported, not so much by her own feet as by some
invisible means, to the top of a high hill. Here the scents, the sounds
among the dry heather-roots, the grass-blades pressed upon the palm of
her hand, were all so perceptible that she could experience each one
separately. After this her mind made excursions into the dark of the
air, or settled upon the surface of the sea, which could be discovered
over there, or with equal unreason it returned to its couch