"And you, Colonel Vernon?"
"I am very anxious," said the Colonel, in a hesitating manner, not usual with him, "at all events, that Kate should avail herself of such an invitation. Nurse might travel with her, I shall probably visit Dublin, look in upon you, and—"
"Pray where is the money to come from to do all this?" said Winter, bluntly.
"My dear sir, you forget we shall sell our furniture, and let this house."
"And when that is all gone you will be just where you were, except that your chief comforter will be many a league away, and Lady Desmond's gratitude immersed in that lethe in which impulsive people's noblest sentiments most frequently lose themselves."
"You wrong my cousin," cried Miss Vernon.
"In truth I feel incapable of deciding," said the Colonel. "I do not like the idea of throwing ourselves on Lady Desmond; but, Winter, you cannot comprehend the horror with which I contemplate my Kate's teaching—walking out alone, meeting insolence—Great God!"
He covered his face with his hands, and Kate, half appalled by the dismal picture he had drawn, clasped hers together with an appealing look to Winter, who said, huskily and oracularly,
"Hear me, Colonel. I can easily comprehend your feelings, though I am a plebeian; but I tell you there is another side of the picture. At present you are in perfect sympathy with your cousin, and the electricity of mutual obligation and kindness runs freely back and forward between you; but when you have been for six months her inmate, feeling yourself dependent on her bounty for the bread you eat; when a wish for variety may tempt her to covet the rooms you occupy for some more amusing guest, less weighed down by care; and when the freshness and excitement of a generous act, shall have ceased to interest; a thousand mortifying slights, a thousand unimportant trifles, will make your life wretched, and wear away the links that now seem to bind you so close together."
"Oh, no, no, Georgy could never act unkindly," cried Kate.