"She met him at Castleford, and I rather think he is related to Colonel Ormonde." Miss Payne put back the cards in the dish as she spoke, and remained silent for some instants.
"You will be glad when Miss Liddell returns," said Bertie.
"So will you," she returned, tartly. "But I hope you won't dip into her purse so freely as you used for your reformed drunkards and ragged orphans. It was too bad."
"Miss Liddell never waits to be asked. She seems on the lookout for cases on which to bestow money. As she has plenty, why should I hesitate to accept it?"
Miss Payne slowly rubbed her nose with the handle of a small hook she used for pulling out the loops of her tatting. "Katherine Liddell is an uncommon sort of girl," she said, "but I like her. I have an idea that she likes me better than any of the others did, yet there are not many things on which we agree. She is a little flighty in some ways, but she has some sense too, some notion of the value of money; she does not lose her dead about dress, nor does she buy costly baubles at the jewellers'. She, certainly wastes a good many pounds on books, when a three-guinea subscription to Mudie's would answer the purpose quite as well. Then she is honestly deeply grieved at the loss of her mother, but she does not parade it, or nurse it either, and I think she has some opinion of my judgment. Still she is a little unsettled, and not quite happy."
"I think she deserves to be happy," observed Bertie, with an air of conviction—"if any erring mortal can deserve anything."
"We seldom get our deserts, either way, here; indeed, this world is so upside down I am inclined to believe there must be another to put it straight."
"We have fortunately better proof than that," returned her brother, gravely.
"I must say I feel very curious to know what Katherine's plan is; I am terrible afraid there is a man in it."
"Nothing more probable;" and Bertie fell into a fit of thought. "You know Mrs. Needham!" he asked suddenly.