An interval of silence followed.  Captain Bennydeck was thinking over the message which he had just read.  Catherine and her mother were looking at him with the same interest, inspired by very different motives.  The interview so pleasantly begun was in some danger of lapsing into formality and embarrassment, when a new personage appeared on the scene.

Kitty had returned in triumph from her ride.  “Mamma! the donkey did more than gallop—­he kicked, and I fell off.  Oh, I’m not hurt!” cried the child, seeing the alarm in her mother’s face.  “Tumbling off is such a funny sensation.  It isn’t as if you fell on the ground; it’s as if the ground came up to you and said—­Bump!” She had got as far as that, when the progress of her narrative was suspended by the discovery of a strange gentleman in the room.

The smile that brightened the captain’s face, when Kitty opened the door, answered for him as a man who loved children.  “Your little girl, Mrs. Norman?” he said.

“Yes.”

(A common question and a common reply.  Nothing worth noticing, in either the one or the other, at the time—­and yet they proved to be important enough to turn Catherine’s life into a new course.)

In the meanwhile, Kitty had been whispering to her mother.  She wanted to know the strange gentleman’s name.  The Captain heard her.  “My name is Bennydeck,” he said; “will you come to me?”

Kitty had heard the name mentioned in connection with a yacht.  Like all children, she knew a friend the moment she looked at him.  “I’ve seen your pretty boat, sir,” she said, crossing the room to Captain Bennydeck.  “Is it very nice when you go sailing?”

“If you were not going back to London, my dear, I should ask your mamma to let me take you sailing with me.  Perhaps we shall have another opportunity.”

The Captain’s answer delighted Kitty.  “Oh, yes, tomorrow or next day!” she suggested.  “Do you know where to find me in London?  Mamma, where do I live, when I am in London?” Before her mother could answer, she hit on a new idea.  “Don’t tell me; I’ll find it for myself.  It’s on grandmamma’s boxes, and they’re in the passage.”

Captain Bennydeck’s eyes followed her, as she left the room, with an expression of interest which more than confirmed the favorable impression that he had already produced on Catherine.  She was on the point of asking if he was married, and had children of his own, when Kitty came back, and declared the right address to be Buck’s Hotel, Sydenham.  “Mamma puts things down for fear of forgetting them,” she added.  “Will you put down Buck?”

The Captain took out his pocketbook, and appealed pleasantly to Mrs. Norman.  “May I follow your example?” he asked.  Catherine not only humored the little joke, but, gratefully remembering his kindness, said:  “Don’t forget, when you are in London, that Kitty’s invitation is my invitation, too.”  At the same moment, punctual Mrs. Presty looked at her watch, and reminded her daughter that railways were not in the habit of allowing passengers to keep them waiting.  Catherine rose, and gave her hand to the Captain at parting.  Kitty improved on her mother’s form of farewell; she gave him a kiss and whispered a little reminder of her own:  “There’s a river in London—­don’t forget your boat.”