"Perhaps it would be wiser not to go," said the mother; "they will not be so sound asleep as baby, and——"
"You must indulge me this once, Ada. I long to look at them."
"Oh! of course, dear; ring for Eliza, nurse; she will show Miss Liddell the way. I must go back; it would never do to leave Lady Alice so long alone."
"Do not apologize," said Katherine, with a curious jealous pang, as she noted Mrs. Ormonde's indifference to the children of her first poor love-match.
A demure, flat-faced girl answered the bell, and led Katherine down passages and up a crooked stair to another part of the house.
Here she was shown into a room sparsely supplied with old furniture. There was a good fire, and a shaded lamp stood on a large table, where a girl sat writing.
"Here is a lady to see the young gentlemen," said the nurse-maid. The young scribe started up, looking confused.
"If it would not disturb them," said Katherine, gently, "I should like to see my nephews in their sleep."
"Oh, Miss Liddell!" exclaimed the governess, a younger, commoner-looking person than Katherine had chosen before she left England. "This is their bedroom," and she led Katherine through a door opposite the fireplace into an inner room. There in their little beds lay the boys who were all of kith or kin left to Katherine Liddell.
How lovingly she bent over and gazed at them!