lity
and grace.

And the little lad's appearance afforded, in these pleasant early days
at all events, fair index to his temperament. He was gay-natured,
affectionate, intelligent, full of a lively yet courteous curiosity,
easily moved to laughter, almost inconveniently fearless and
experimental; while his occasional thunderbursts of passion cleared off
quickly into sunshine and blue sky again. For as yet the burden of
deformity rested upon him very lightly. He associated hardly at all
with other children, and had but scant occasion to measure his poor
powers of locomotion against their normal ones. Lady Fallowfeild it is
true, in obedience to suggestions on the part of her kindly lord and
master, offered tentatively to import a carriage load--little Ludovic
Quayle was just the same age as Dickie--from the Whitney nurseries to
spend the day.

"Good fellow, Calmady. I liked Calmady," Lord Fallowfeild had said to
her. His conversation, it may be observed, was nothing if not
interjectional. "Pretty woman, Lady Calmady---terrible thing for her
being left as she is. Always shall regret Calmady. Very sorry for her.
Always have been sorry for a pretty woman in trouble. Ought to see
something of her, my dear. The two estates join, and, as I always have
said, it's a duty to support your own class. Can't expect the masses to
respect you unless you show them you're prepared to stand by your own
class. Just take some of the children over to see Lady Calmady. Pretty
children, do her good to see them. Rode uncommonly straight did
Calmady. Terribly upsetting thing his funeral. Never shall forget it.
Always did like Calmady--good fellow, Calmady. Nasty thing his death."

But Katherine's pen was fertile in excuses to avoid the invasion from
Whitney. Lady Fallowfeild's small brains and large domestic complacency
were too trying to her. And that noble lady, it must be owned, was
secretly not a little glad to have her advances thus firmly, though
gently, repulsed. For she was alarmed at Lady Calmady's reported
acquaintance with foreign lands and with books; added to which her
simple mind harboured much grisly though vague terror concerning the
Roman Church. Picture all her brood of little Quayles incontinently
converted into little monks and nuns with shaven heads! How such sudden
conversion could be accomplished Lady Fallowfeild did not presume to
explain. It sufficed her that "everybody always said Papists were so
dreadfully clever a