"
"I have always been naughty," said Kate.
"Then we must try if your Aunt Emily can help you to be good. Will
you try to be as like her own child to her as you can, Katharine?"
"And to you," actually whispered Kate; for somehow at that moment she
cared much more for the stern uncle than the gentle aunt.
He lifted her up and kissed her, but set her down again with the sigh
that told how little she could make up to him for the son he had left
in Egypt. Yet, perhaps that sigh made Kate long with more fervent
love for some way of being so very good and affectionate as quite to
make him happy, than if he had received her demonstration as if
satisfied by it.
CHAPTER XV.
Nothing of note passed during the rest of the evening. Mrs.
Umfraville came home; but Kate had fallen back into the shy fit that
rendered her unwilling to begin on what was personal, and the Colonel
waited to talk it over with his wife alone before saying any more.
Besides, there were things far more near to them than their little
great-niece, and Mrs. Umfraville could not see Lord de la Poer
without having her heart very full of the sons to whom he had been so
kind. Again they sat round the fire, and this time in the dark,
while once more Giles and Frank and all their ways were talked over
and over, and Kate was forgotten; but she was not sitting alone in
the dark window--no, she had a footstool close to her uncle, and sat
resting her head upon his knee, her eyes seeking red caverns in the
coals, her heart in a strange peaceful rest, her ears listening to
the mother's subdued tender tones in speaking of her boys, and the
friend's voice of sympathy and affection.
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