“Then you must accept me as a hereditary friend,” said Errington, kindly.  “I shall tell my father that I have made your acquaintance, though he does not take much interest in anything now, I am sorry to say.”

“I am sorry—­” faltered Katherine.

“Both Lady Alice and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in town,” continued Errington, having waited in vain for her to finish her sentence.  “I am going to see her safely in her aunt’s charge to-morrow, and shall not return, I fancy, till you have left.”

“You are both very good.  I shall be most happy to see you again,” returned Katherine, mastering her forces, though she felt ready to fly and hide her guilty head in any corner.  Errington felt that she was unusually uneasy and uncomfortable with him, so made way the more readily for De Burgh, who monopolized her for rest of the evening.

The next day was wet, and for a week the weather was unsettled, so that Katherine had only one more lesson in driving before the party broke up, and De Burgh too was obliged to leave.

But Katherine prolonged her stay.  Charlie, in ardor for fishing, had slipped into the river and caught a severe, feverish cold.

The way in which he clung to his auntie, the evident comfort he derived from her presence, the delight he had in holding her cool soft hand in his own burning little fingers, made him impossible for her to leave him.  By the time he was able to sit up and play with his brother, poor Charlie was a pallid little skeleton, and his auntie bade him a tender adieu, determined to lose no time in finding sea-side quarters for the precious invalid.

CHAPTER XVII.

TAKING COUNSEL.

Miss Payne was busy looking over several cards which lay in a small china dish on her work-table.  It was early in the forenoon, and she still wore a simple muslin cap and a morning gown of gray cashmere.  Her mouth looked very rigid and her eyes gloomy.  To her enters her brother, fresh and bright, a smile on his lips and a flower in his button-hole.

Miss Payne vouchsafed no greeting.  Looking at him sternly, she asked, “Well! what do you want?”

“To ask at what hour Miss Liddell arrives, and if I am to meet her at the station.”

“She is not coming to-day,” snapped Miss Payne; “she is not coming till Saturday.”

“Indeed!” In a changed tone, “I hope she is all right?”

“It’s hard to answer that.  It seems one of the nephews has had a feverish cold, and she did not like to leave him.  I do not feel sure there is not some real reason under this, for she adds that she is anxious to see and consult me about some matter she has much at heart.  Perhaps there is a man at the bottom of it.”

“I hope not,” said Bertie, quietly, “unless she has found some former friend at Castleford.  I do not think Miss Liddell is the sort of girl to accept a man on five or six weeks’ acquaintance, and she has scarcely been at Castleford so long.”