d stay with Lady Katherine before you leave, so you won't feel you are
all among strangers."

I thanked him, and he squeezed my hand so kindly. I do like Lord Robert.

Very soon I was gay again and _insouciante_, and the last they saw of me
was smiling out of the brougham window as I drove off in the dusk. They
both stood upon the steps and waved to me.

Tea was over at Tryland when I arrived--such a long, damp drive! And I
explained to Lady Katherine how sorry I was to have had to come so late,
and that I could not think of troubling her to have up fresh for me; but
she insisted, and after a while a whole new lot came, made in a hurry with
the water not boiling, and I had to gulp down a nasty cup--Ceylon tea,
too! I hate Ceylon tea! Mr. Montgomerie warmed himself before the fire,
quite shielding it from us, who shivered on a row of high-backed chairs
beyond the radius of the hearth-rug.

He has a way of puffing out his cheeks and making a noise like "Burrrr,"
which sounds very bluff and hearty until you find he has said a mean thing
about some one directly after. And while red hair looks very well on me, I
do think a man with it is the ugliest thing in creation. His face is red,
and his nose and cheeks almost purple, and fiery whiskers, fierce enough
to frighten a cat in a dark lane.

He was a rich Scotch manufacturer, and poor Lady Katherine had to marry
him, I suppose; though, as she is Scotch herself, I dare say she does not
notice that he is rather coarse.

There are two sons and six daughters--one married, four grown-up, and one
at school in Brussels--and all with red hair! But straight and coarse, and
with freckles and white eyelashes. So, really, it is very kind of Lady
Katherine to have asked me here.

They are all as good as gold on top, and one does poker-work, and another
binds books, and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth knits
ties--all for charities, and they ask every one to subscribe to them
directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth ones were
sitting working hard in the drawing-room--Kirstie and Jean are their
names; Jessie and Maggie, the poker-worker and the bookbinder, have a
sitting-room to themselves--their work-shop they call it. They were there
still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We used to meet
once a year at Mrs. Carruthers's Christmas parties ever since ages and
ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and they generally had
co