In the drawing-room Colonel Ormonde was seated beside Lady Alice, making conversation to the best of his ability. She looked serenely content, and held a piece of crochet, the kind of fancy-work which occupied the young ladies in the "sixties." The rector and Mr. Errington were in deep conversation on the hearth-rug, and Mrs. Ormonde was reading the paper.
"So you have been visiting the nursery?" said the Colonel, rising and offering Katherine a chair. "Your first introduction to our young man, I suppose?"
"Yes. What a great boy he is!—the picture of health!"
"Ay, he is a Trojan," complacently. "The other little fellows are looking well, eh?"
"Very well indeed. Cis is wonderfully grown; but Charlie is much what he was."
"He'll overtake his brother, though, before long," said Colonel Ormonde, encouragingly, as he rang and ordered the card-table to be set.
"You play whist, I suppose? We want a fourth."
"I am quite ignorant of that fascinating game," returned Katherine, "and very sorry to be so useless."
"It is lamentable ignorance! Lady Alice, will you take compassion on us? No?—then we must have Errington."
Errington did not seem at all reluctant, and the two young ladies were left to entertain each other.