Again Miss Payne reflected before she spoke.  “I should rather like it:  and your idea of letting this house is a good one.  Yes, I shall be happy to assist you as far as I can.  The first question is, where shall we go?”

“That, I am sure, you know best.”

An interesting disquisition ensued.  Miss Payne rejected Bournemouth, Weymouth, Worthing, Brighton, and Folkestone, for what seemed to Katherine sufficient reason, and finally recommended Sandbourne, a quiet and little-known nook on the Dorsetshire coast, as being mild but not relaxing, not too near nor too far from town, and possessing fine sands, while the country round was less bare and flat than what usually lies near the coast.

Finally the “friends in council” decided to go down and look at the place.  “For,” observed Miss Payne, “if we are to go away the beginning of next month, we have little more than a fortnight before us.”

“By all means,” cried Katherine, starting up.  “Let us go to-morrow; we might ‘do’ the place in a day, and come back the next.  You are really a dear, to fall into my views so readily.”

“To-morrow?  Oh! that’s a little too fast; the day after, if you like.  Now I wish you would look at these cards; they have all been left for you in the last few days.”

Katherine took and looked over them with some running comments.  “Mrs. Tracy!  I shall be quite glad to see them again; they were always so kind and pleasant.  Lady Mary Vincent!  I did not think she would call so soon; I think I must go and see her to-morrow.  I rather like her niece, Lady Alice Mordaunt; she is a nice, gentle girl.  She is to be married very soon to a man who interested me a good deal; such a thoughtful, clever man, but rather provokingly composed and perfect—­a sort of person who never makes a mistake.”

“He must be a remarkable person,” said Miss Payne.

“He will soon be in Parliament, and has some of the qualities which make a statesman, I imagine.  I shall watch his progress.”  Here Katherine took up a card, and while she read the inscription, “John Fitzstephen de Burgh,” a slight smile crept round her lips.  “I had no idea he was in town, or that he would take the trouble of calling on me so soon.  I thought he was too utterly offended.”

“Why?” asked Miss Payne, looking at her curiously.

“He is rather ill-tempered, I fancy, and he was vexed because I preferred staying with Charlie to going out with him:  he offered to teach me how to drive; so I believe, like the rich young man in the gospel, he went away in desperation.”

“Hum!  Is he a rich young man?”

“He is not young, and I am not sure about his being rich.  He has a hunting-lodge and horses, yet I don’t fancy he is rich.  He is a sort of relation of the Ormondes.”

“I suspect he is a spendthrift, and would like your money.”