"I am going to ask Mrs. Ormonde to lend them to me for a few months, for they are all I have of kith or kin."
"They are not at all like you," returned Errington, letting his quiet, but to her most embarrassing, eyes rest upon her face.
"Yet they are my only brother's children." Here Katherine paused with a sense of relief; they had reached a stile where a footway led across some fields and a piece of common overgrown with bracken and gorse. It was the short-cut to Castleford, by which Cecil had led her to the Melford Woods.
"Oh, do come round by the road, auntie," he exclaimed; "perhaps Mr. Errington will let me ride his horse."
"I do not know if he will, Cis, but I certainly will not. I am tired too, dear, and want to get home the shortest way I can, so bid Mr. Errington good-by, and come with me. No, don't shake hands; yours are much too dirty."
"Never mind; when you are a big boy I'll give you a mount. Good by, Master Charlie—you are Charlie, are you not? Till we meet at dinner, Miss Liddell." He raised his hat, and divining that she wished him to let her get over the stile unassisted, he mounted his horse and rode swiftly away.
"I am sure he would have given me a ride if you had gone by the road, auntie," said Cecil, reproachfully.
"I could not have allowed, you, dear; so do not think about it." Errington meanwhile rode on, unconsciously slackening his pace as he mused. "No, she certainly has never seen me before, yet she knows me. How? She was very glad to get rid of me just now. Why? I am inoffensive enough. There is something uncommon about her; she gives me the idea of having a history, which is anything but desirable for a young woman. What fine eyes she has! She is something like that Sibyl of Guercino's in the Capitol. Why does she object to me? It is rather absurd. I must make her talk, then I shall find out."
Here his horse started, and broke the thread of his reflections. By the time the steed had pranced and curvetted a little, Errington's thoughts had turned into some of their usual graver channels, and Katherine Liddell was—well, not absolutely forgotten.
The object of his reflections reached the house rather late for the boys' tea, and expecting to find her hostess and Lady Alice enjoying the same refreshment, she gave her warm out-door jacket to Cecil, who immediately put it on as the best mode of taking it upstairs, and went into Mrs. Ormonde's morning-room, where afternoon tea was always served. It was a pleasant room in warm summer weather, as its aspect was east, and the afternoons were cool and shady there; but of a chill evening at the end of March it was cold and dim, and needed the glow of a good fire to make it attractive.