"I can't tell, Simnel," said the girl, raising her tear-blurred face. "I can't tell. I've a horrible weight here," placing her hand upon her heart,--"a something hanging over me; a presentiment of something about to happen,--and I haven't the least notion what,--that never leaves me. I'm as flat as a bad bottle of champagne. By the way, I think I'll try whether a glass of that Madeira wouldn't--"
"No, no, Kitty; for heaven's sake keep off that! The lift given by that is only temporary, and you're twice as down as you were before, when it subsides. You've never asked me one word about my journey yet."
"Your journey! What journey? Oh, to be sure, you said you'd been away, and on my business. Where did you go to?"
"To Newcastle-on-Tyne. To Norton's Fields, just beyond the town; where--"
"Norton's Fields! Newcastle! Why that's where we used to make our pitch with old Fox's Circus, and--"
"And that's exactly the place where old Fox's Circus is pitched at this moment."
"Did you go to it?"
"Why, Kitty, can't you understand that, after what you told me the other day, to visit it, and glean information from its people, was the sole cause of my journey?"
"And did you see them all? Is old Fox still alive; and Madam, with her deep voice and big bony hands; and Lucette and Josephine--big girls now, and doing the haute-école business, I suppose; and Brownini, the clown, is he with them yet? and Thompson the barebacked-rider--a conceited beast, he was!--and old Bellars the band-leader? Lord, Lord what happy times those were! happier than I shall ever see again, I know."
"Nonsense, Kate. Your life is just now at its turn. All those horrid days of grinding labour in the circus, all the hard work you've done here, shall be to you like a dream. You shall be a swell, and hold your own with the best of them. Ay, and not merely in money,--I offered you that long since,--but I wanted to prove a position for you, and I have proved it, Kitty, my darling!" and Mr. Simnel's usually pale cheeks glowed, and his eyes glistened, and he squeezed Kate's hand in the excitement of his feelings.