er."

What could this possibly mean? It was but that very same day the post
brought her a letter from Nelly. Why had not her father said what he
wished to say, in that? What need of this roundabout, mysterious mode of
communicating?

The sight of the servant still in waiting for the answer recalled her
from these cross-questionings, and she hurried away to consult Lady
Hester about the reply.

"It's very shocking, my dear child," said she, as she listened to the
explanation. "The Ricketts, they tell me, is something too dreadful; and
we have escaped her hitherto. You could n't be ill, could you?"

"But the letter?" said Kate, half smiling, half provoked.

"Oh, to be sure the letter! But Buccellini, you know, might take the
letter, and leave it, with unbroken seal, near you; you could read
it just as well. I 'm sure I read everything Sir Stafford said in his
without ever opening it. You saw that yourself, Kate, or, with
your scepticism, I suppose, you 'd not believe it, for you are very
sceptical; it is your fault of faults, my dear. D'Esmonde almost shed
tears about it, the other day. He told me that you actually refused to
believe in the Madonna della Torre, although he showed you the phial
with the tears in it!"

"I only said that I had not seen the Virgin shed them," said Kate.

"True, child! but you saw the tears; and you heard D'Esmonde remark,
that when you saw the garden of a morning, all soaked with wet, the
trees and flowers dripping, you never doubted that it had rained during
the night, although you might not have been awake to hear or see it."

Kate was silent; not that she was unprepared with an answer, but dreaded
to prolong a discussion so remote from the object of her visit.

"Now, Protestant that I am," said Lady Hester, with the triumphant tone
of one who rose above all the slavery of prejudice, "Protestant that I
am, I believe in the 'Torre.' The real distinction to make is, between
what is above, and what is contrary to, reason, Kate. Do you understand
me, child?"

"I'm sure Mrs. Ricketts's visit must be both," Kate said, adroitly
bringing back the original theme.

"Very true; and I was forgetting the dear woman altogether. I suppose
you must receive her, Kate; there 's no help for it! Say three o'clock,
and I'll sit in the small drawing-room, and, with the gallery and the
library between us, I shall not hear her dreadful voice."

"Has she such?" asked Kate, innocently.

"I'm sure I d