m. She
had reckoned on one whose scholarship would carry him no further than a
few stock quotations from Horace, and whose knowledge of art would
begin and end with a portrait of himself presented by the members of a
local hunt. And it was a little surprising--possibly a little
mortifying to her--to hear him talking over obscure passages in
Spencer's _Faerie Queene_ with Mrs. St. Quentin, before the end of the
dinner, and nicely apprising the relative merits of the water-colour
sketches by Turner, that hung on either side the drawing-room
fireplace.

Nor did Katherine's surprises end here. An unaccountable something was
taking place within her, that opened up a whole new range of emotion.
She, the least moody of young women, had strange fluctuations of
temper, finding herself buoyantly happy one hour, the next pensive,
filled with timidity and self-distrust--not to mention the little fits
of gusty anger, and purposeless jealousy which took her, hurting her
pride shrewdly. She grew anxiously solicitous as to her personal
appearance. This dress would not please her nor that. The image of her
charming oval face and well-set head ceased to satisfy her. Surely a
woman's hair should be either positively blond or black, not this
indeterminate brown, with warm lights in it? She feared her mouth was
not small enough, the lips too full and curved for prettiness. She
wished her eyes less given to change, under their dark lashes, from
clear gray-blue to a nameless colour like the gloom of the pools of a
woodland stream, as her feelings changed from gladness to distress. She
feared her complexion was too bright, and then not bright enough. And,
all the while, a certain shame possessed her that she should care at
all about such trivial matters; for life had grown suddenly larger and
more august. Books she had read, faces she had watched a hundred times,
the vast horizon looking eastward over the unquiet sea, all these
gained a new value and meaning which at once enthralled and agitated
her thought.

Sir Richard Calmady stayed a fortnight at Ormiston. And the two ladies
crossed to Paris earlier, that autumn, than was their custom. Katherine
was not in her usual good health, and Mrs. St. Quentin desired change
of air and scene on her account. She took Mademoiselle de Mirancourt
into her confidence, hinting at causes for her restlessness and wayward
little humours unacknowledged by the girl herself. Then the two elder
women wrapped K