"Yes, I think it would be unkind to break in on such a conversation. Oh, here is Mrs. Needham! Do you want me very much, Mrs. Needham? because, if not, I should like to go to bed. I have a tiresome headache."
"Go by all means, my dear; you are looking like a ghost; they are all talking and amusing each other now, and don't want you or me." "Good night, then," said Katherine, giving her hand to De Burgh, and she glided away.
"What a lot she takes out of herself!" said De Burgh, looking after her.
"She does indeed," cried Mrs. Needham; "she is so unselfish. I hate to see her worried. I wonder if he has proposed?" she thought.
"I think he is pretty far gone. Now pray don't run away just now; Merrydew is going to give one of his musical sketches, and then I want to introduce you to Professor Gypsum. He thinks there ought to be a rich coal seam on your South Wales property; he is a most intelligent, accomplished man."
"Very well—with pleasure," said De Burgh, complacently.
It was rather a relief to be quite sure that De Burgh was safe out of the way for a few days. His presence always disturbed her with a mixed sense of pain and self-reproach. He gave her no opening to warn him off, yet she felt that he lost no opportunity of pushing his mines up to the defences; and she liked him—liked him sincerely—always believing there was much undeveloped goodness under his rough exterior.
Sunday came quickly, for the intervening days had been very fully occupied, and thus Katherine had been saved from too much thought of the boys and their possible trials.
It was a soft, lovely spring day. The lilacs and laburnums had put on their ball-dresses for the season, and there was a fresh, youthful feeling in the air. The villa of which Angela was the happy mistress was one of the few old places standing on the edge of the common at Wimbledon, and boasting mossy green lawns, huge cedar trees, and delightful shrubberies, paths leading through a well-disposed patch of plantation, and a fine view from the windows of the deep red-brick mansion, with its copings, window-heads, and pediments of white stone.