Kitty gazed at her left-hand neighbour with surprise, but I could feel that maiden bashfulness induced her to press less closely to my side than she had done the minute before.
"I don't understand you," Kitty answered, after a short pause, during which she was doubtless endeavouring to comprehend what she had heard. "Grandmother has no wish to go to town; she only wants to pass the rest of her days, quietly, at the old place, and one church is enough for anybody."
Had the little girl lived a few years later, she would have ascertained that some persons require half-a-dozen.
"And you, Kitty, do you suppose your grandmother has no thought for you, when she shall be called away herself?
"Oh! yes--I know she thinks a good deal of that, but I try to set her heart at ease, poor, dear, old grandmother, for it's of no use to be distressing herself about me! I can take care of myself well enough, and have plenty of friends who will never see me want. Father's sisters say they'll take care of me."
"You have one friend, Kitty, of whom you little think, just now, and he will provide for you."
"I don't know whom you mean, sir--unless--and yet you can't suppose I never think of God, sir?"
"I mean a friend on earth--have you no friend on earth, whom you have not mentioned yet?"
"I am not sure--perhaps--you do not mean Horace Bright, do you, sir?"
This was said with a bright blush, and a look in which the dawning consciousness of maiden shame was so singuarly blended with almost childish innocence, as both to delight me, and yet cause me to smile.