“I am sorry, Kate, but it cannot be. I will explain to Mrs Clare.”
Kate looked vexed for a moment, but she did not dream of resisting, and soon, too soon, as thought her mother, her wayward fancy turned to some fresh object of interest.
So “Kitty,” as her new friends called her, was thus deprived of an important means of forming her character for herself, and also of taking kindly to the increase of Church privileges offered by Mr Clare to his parishioners, and which her mother felt to be a refreshment come back to her from the days of her youth. Kate indeed had no objection to frequent services, as they afforded opportunities of meeting her friends, the one object on which at present her heart was set. She took to them as part of the new and delightful life in which she met with new pleasures. She learned to play lawn-tennis and croquet, went out blackberrying, and boating, and enjoyed herself so intensely in the new young companionship, that she never speculated on past or future.
Emberance found things pleasant enough, but she felt as if there were years of life between herself and her cousin, as she thought of Malcolm Mackenzie’s ship tossing on the waves which never rose without costing her an unreasonable sense of apprehension. She was also much more considerate of Mrs Kingsworth than was Katharine; who never heeded her coldness or her silence, or the slight sarcasms bestowed on her vehement delights, setting it all down as “mamma’s way.”
Chapter Eight.
Society.
It was a still evening late in October. The level rays of the setting sun struck on the Kingsworth rocks till the little cove had almost the warmth of summer. Soft rosy clouds floated over the blue vault and reflected their colour on the rippling water, and on the white wings of the sea birds which hovered between sea and sky.
Katharine Kingsworth was sitting on a smooth dry stone with her feet on the warm sand, the red light brightening her face and hair, and making her little figure in its warm dark dress a picturesque object in the scene.