“Very glad to see you, Miss Liddell,” said Angela, kindly, when she had greeted Mrs. Needham.  “This is your first visit to the Court.  Do you know I wanted to ask you to come down to us for a few days; but, when I looked for you at Mrs. Needham’s the other night, you had vanished, and since I have been so much taken up, as I will explain later, that I have been quite unable to write.  I hope you will manage to pay us a visit next week; the air here is most reviving.”

“You are too good, Miss Bradley,” returned Katherine, touched by her kind tone.  “If Mrs. Needham can spare me, I shall of course be delighted to come;” and she resolved mentally that she should not be spared.

“Major Urquhart,” continued Miss Bradley, turning to a very tall, thin, soldierly-looking man, who might once have been fair, but was now burnt to brickdust hue, with long tawny moustache and thick overhanging eyebrows of the same color, “pray take Miss Liddell round the grounds, and show her my favorite fernery.”

Major Urquhart bowed low and presented his arm.

“I see,” continued Angela, “that Mrs. Needham is already absorbed by a dozen dear friends.”

“You have not been here before,” said Major Urquhart, in a deep hollow voice.

“Never.”

“Charming place! immensely improved since I went to India five years ago.”

“Miss Bradley has great taste,” remarked Katherine.

“Wonderful—­astonishing; she has made all this fernery since I was here last.”

Then there was a long pause, and a few more sentences expressive of admiration were exchanged, and somehow Katherine began to feel that her companion was rather bored and preoccupied, so she turned her steps towards the house, intending to release him.

At the further side of the fernery, in a pretty path between green banks, they suddenly met Errington face to face.

“Miss Bradley wants you, Urquhart,” he said, as soon as they had exchanged salutations.  “You may leave Miss Liddell in my charge, if she will permit.”  Major Urquhart bowed himself off, and Errington continued, “You would not suspect that was a very distinguished officer.”

“I don’t know; he seems very silent and inanimate.”

“Well, I assure you he is a very fine fellow, and did great deeds in the Mutiny.  But come, the lawn is looking quite picturesque in the sunshine, with the groups of people scattered about.  It would be perfect were it sleeping in the tranquil silence of a restful Sabbath day.”

“Are you not something of a hermit in your tastes?” asked Katherine, looking up at him with one of her sunny smiles.

“By no means.  I like the society of my fellow-men, but I like a spell of solitude every now and then, as a rest and refreshment on the dusty road of life.”

“I begin to think peace the greatest boon heaven can bestow.”

“Yes, after the late vicissitudes, it must seem to you the greatest good.  Let us sit down under this cedar; there is a pretty peep across the common to the blue distance.  We might be a hundred miles from London, everything is so calm.”