“I’m sure I don’t wonder at it, toiling from morning till night for those wretched papers.  I was telling Mrs. Burnett to-day that my mother-in-law was an authoress, but when I mentioned that she wrote for The Family Friend and The Cheerful Visitor, Lady Everton, who writes in The Court Journal and various grand things of that kind, said they were quite low publications, and never got higher than the servants’ hall.”

“You need not have gone into particulars, Ada.  Whether my mother writes well or ill, the pressure on her is too great to allow of her picking or choosing; she must catch at the quickest market.”

“I’m sure it is a great pity.  That is the reason I stay on here, and let you teach Cis and Charlie, though Colonel Ormonde says the sooner boys are out of a woman’s hands the better.”

“If Colonel Ormonde is the old man I saw this morning, he looks more capable of judging a dinner than what is the best training for youth.”

“Old!” screamed the pretty widow.  “He is not old; he is only mature.  He is very well off, too.  He has a place in the country.  And as to mentioning those papers, I know nothing of such things. The Nineteenth Century, or Bow Bells, or The Family Friend, they are all the same to me.  Only I am sure such a nice lady-like woman as Mrs. Liddell should not write for the servants’ hall.  She must have been so handsome, too!  Fred, poor fellow, was her image.  You will never be so good-looking, Kate.”

“No, I don’t suppose I shall,” returned Katherine, with much equanimity.

“Are there any letters for me?” asked Mrs. Frederic, looking round as she lifted her bonnet from the table.

“Here are two.”

“Ah! this is from Harry Vigors.  I suppose he is coming home.  And oh! this is Madame de Corset’s bill”—­putting down her bonnet and opening it.  “Eleven pounds seventeen and ninepence-half-penny.  Why, this is abominable!  She promised it should not be much more than ten pounds.  There is five per cent off for ready money.  Oh, I’ll pay it immediately.  How much will that be altogether, Kate?  Eleven shillings?  Well, that is worth saving.  It will buy me two pairs of gloves.  Now I’ll go and rest.  Tell me when Mrs. Liddell is awake.”

CHAPTER II.

BREAKING NEW GROUND.

Katherine took care that her sister-in-law should not have an opportunity of private conversation with Mrs. Liddell, that evening at least.

She rolled up and arranged the disordered manuscripts, putting the small study in order, and locking away the rejected tales.  Then she proposed conducting the young widow to the florist’s, as the evening grew cooler, and made herself agreeable by listening attentively to the little woman’s description of the luncheon party, and her repetition of all the pretty things said to her by the various gentlemen present, especially by Colonel Ormonde.