CHAPTER III. This grey round world, so full of life, JOHN STERLING. RETURNING to Lowndes-square only just in time to dress for dinner, Kathleen was occupied during that meal in satisfying the curiosity of Lady Harriet and her daughters concerning her sister's family and domestic arrangements, as far as she thought proper, and perhaps rather farther. The necessity of parrying such questions ceased on their return to the drawing-room: after drinking coffee, Lady Harriet betook herself to her writing-table in the back room, Adelaide sat down to the piano, and Sophy, coiled into an arm chair, was soon peacefully slumbering over a novel. There was nothing, therefore, to interfere with Kathleen's inclination to indulge in dreamy musings, and she sat down to her work among the plants by the open window soothed rather than distracted by the tramp of feet returning from the Park, and by the roll of carriages down Knightsbridge. For these sounds were hushed by the accompaniment played by Adelaide to the notes of her magnificent voice. De Cressy. 3 "The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; The note of despairing sadness in these lines finds its echo in the heart of the young, who take a certain pleasure in cherishing such thoughts, before life's stern teaching leads them to husband grief itself, instead of lavishing it on visionary evils. For what, after all, did Kathleen know of disappointment or suffering, that her heart should swell, and her tears rise and fall, while drinking in these sounds? SO "For pity's sake, Addy," said a familiar voice familiar, that only Kathleen looked up with a start of joyful surprise "for pity's sake, sing something less dismal, and more in harmony with the sweet summer twilight still and sweet even here. Enmore and I were sauntering below the windows, when the doleful notes floated past us, and he insisted on obtaining admittance, with a chivalrous desire to rescue the forlorn songstress from the castle of gloom and despair." The greeting which Adelaide had not exerted herself to afford her cousin, was somewhat tardily vouchsafed to his friend. Sophy shut up her book with the air of wakefulness that sets suspicion at defiance, and shook hands with more appearance of cordiality, and her mother's voice issued from the inner room, demanding if it was "only De Dressy." A reply in the negative called forth excuses for want of ceremony, met by like apologies on Mr. Enmore's part. "I am sure," he said, addressing Sophy, because there was a certain embarrassment in pitching civil speeches in a key adapted to reach Lady Harriet's ears, "I am sure that you will do me the justice to believe that it was De Cressy who caused me to invade you at such an unseasonable hour." "Mamma will be delighted," said Sophy, "for she is quite anxious to keep up the sociable habits we learned abroad." "Certainly," added Lady Harriet, in audible and emphatic tones; "and to prove that I consider you quite at home, I am going to finish my letter before I come in to join your party." Kathleen, shaded by her leafy screen, had taken no share in this conversation; but when Lord De Cressy sought her retreat, the tremulous smile which danced in her eyes, and parted the full, expressive lips, proved that it was not indifference which had kept her silent. "Well, Miss Mortimer," he said, "is this evening as pleasant as the one we passed at Ghent, watching the moon rippling her reflection in the Quai des Bateliers; or the still better sunset, which we saw from the Brühl shore, when we set an example of patience to my respected aunt and cousins, who would persist in being tired and hungry, wondering what made the Dampfschiffe so late, and wishing that they were well housed at Bonn?" "It was all very pleasant," said Kathleen; so slowly, that her pleasure was evidently prolonged in lingering over the recollection. - "I am glad that you acknowledge so much for at the time you spoiled your enjoyment by wishing, or thinking that you ought to wish, yourself at your journey's end; so that I might, if I were so disposed, triumph not a little in the discovery, that in the words of Addy's song "Your thoughts still cling to the mouldering past." "The past is not mouldering," said Kathleen; "but very fresh and vivid. And, moreover, home is quite as good as I expected. I have been all day with Agnes." "Ah, I saw you in the gardens, and I had half a mind to send my horses home and come and join you but you really looked so inaccessible in that tribe of children, that my courage failed." Although it was growing dusk, Lord De Cressy may have discovered from the expression of Kathleen's face that the remark jarred upon her feelings, for he added quickly "I was surprised to see your poor little nephew lying in the summer-house. He told me that he scarcely ever left his couch." "Because he has not the opportunity. But Lady Harriet was so kind as to let us have the barouche, in which he can lie at full length, and then he was just able to walk from the gate. His enjoyment was great, that it made me ashamed to think how we take as things of course the luxuries which seem to give him fresh life." SO "Poor boy!" said Lord De Cressy; "I dare say that Kensington Gardens is an exhilarating change from the sofa, where he can only breathe smoke and survey chimney-pots. And that reminds me to ask you if you think that he could make any use of a box of carvingtools, in which I used to take great delight when I was a boy. I hunted it out of a cupboard to-day, where it had lain untouched, with the accumulations of fifteen years' dust upon the lid, and very old it made me feel when I took out an unfinished garland of oak, looking like a relic of past ages. I will make over all the im Walter, is he not? - if it plements to young Lisle Kathleen eagerly thanked him, adding "I am sure that it will be a great boon. Walter is so neat-handed, and his genius for carving is already shown in fashioning dogs and baskets out of cherry-stones, for the children's amusement." "For the children?" repeated Lord De Cressy, smiling. "I observed that Walter himself made that distinction, as if he belonged altogether to an older generation." "So he does: his earnest, thoughtful manner would win the confidence even of those who know him little, and he and Agnes seem to live for each other. She tells him everything, or what she leaves untold, lest it should grieve him, can scarcely escape the watchful eyes which follow all her motions, and seem to read her thoughts. He is so patient, so wise and good, that I cannot help foreboding that he is marked out for early death and then I dare not look farther: the mother's life is bound up in her frail treasure." All this while, Lord De Cressy leaned against the shutter in an attitude of fixed attention, his eyes bent on the upturned face of the speaker, so as to lose none of its changeful expressions. But it seemed that his eyes were too fully occupied to do justice to his ears, for when she paused, he said, absently "Then I will send the box to-morrow." Again Kathleen was chilled and repelled, and again her companion perceived it, for he hastily resumed — "Or perhaps he would take it better from myself: and then I may be fortunate enough to make your sister's acquaintance." If the last words were spoken with a |