of the grounds which
communicated with the Crystal Palace. Visitors to the hotel had such
pleasant associations with the garden that many of them returned at
future opportunities instead of trying the attraction of some other
place. Various tastes and different ages found their wishes equally
consulted here. Children rejoiced in the finest playground they had
ever seen. Remote walks, secluded among shrubberies, invited persons of
reserved disposition who came as strangers, and as strangers desired to
remain. The fountain and the lawn collected sociable visitors, who were
always ready to make acquaintance with each other. Even the amateur
artist could take liberties with Nature, and find the accommodating
limits of the garden sufficient for his purpose. Trees in the foreground
sat to him for likenesses that were never recognized; and hills
submitted to unprovoked familiarities, on behalf of brushes which were
not daunted by distance.

On the day after the dinner which had so deplorably failed, in respect
of one of the guests invited, to fulfill Catherine's anticipations,
there was a festival at the Palace. It had proved so generally
attractive to the guests at the hotel that the grounds were almost
deserted.

As the sun declined, on a lovely summer evening, the few invalids feebly
wandering about the flower-beds, or resting under the trees, began to
return to the house in dread of the dew. Catherine and her child, with
the nursemaid in attendance, were left alone in the garden. Kitty found
her mother, as she openly declared, "not such good company as usual."
Since the day when her grandmother had said the fatal words which
checked all further allusion to her father, the child had shown
a disposition to complain, if she was not constantly amused. She
complained of Mrs. Presty now.

"I think grandmamma might have taken me to the Crystal Palace," she
said.

"My dear, your grandmamma has friends with her--ladies and gentlemen who
don't care to be troubled with a child."

Kitty received this information in a very unamiable spirit. "I hate
ladies and gentlemen!" she said.

"Even Captain Bennydeck?" her mother asked.

"No; I like my nice Captain. And I like the waiters. They would take me
to the Crystal Palace--only they're always busy. I wish it was bedtime;
I don't know what to do with myself."

"Take a little walk with Susan."

"Where shall I go?"

Catherine looked toward the gate which opened on the road, and