"I will not be ungrateful, sir," returned Katherine.
"And you must endeavour to relieve Mrs. Kenrick of all onerous duties as much as possible," said the rector. "Thus, you had better always answer my bell yourself, when the footman is not in the way."
"I will make a point of doing so, sir," was the artless reply.
The rector gave some more trivial directions, and dismissed his new domestic to her duties.
He then hastened to Tavistock Square, to appease Lady Harborough, whose jealousy, he suspected, had been aroused by his absence from home.
CHAPTER CXLVII.
THE RECTOR'S NEW PASSION.
To make his peace with Lady Cecilia was by no means a difficult matter; and it was accomplished rather by the aid of the rector's purse than his caresses.
He remained to dinner with the syren who had first seduced him from the paths of virtue, which he had pursued so brilliantly and triumphantly—too brilliantly and triumphantly to ensure stability!
In the evening, when they were seated together upon the sofa, Reginald implored her to be more cautious in her proceedings in future.
"Such indiscretion as that of which you have been guilty," he said, "would ruin me. Why send so often to request my presence? The most unsuspicious would be excited; and my housekeeper has spoken to me in a manner that has seriously alarmed me."