"Yes, Colonel Dashwood is very much to be liked—I am very fond of him."
"Lord, my dear, that is a confession."
"Is it," said Kate, laughing.
"What would my lord say to that?" asked Mrs. Storey.
"Nothing, I should think."
"Two strings to one's bow, are sometimes as bad as none," remarked Mrs. Storey, oracularly.
"Between two stools, etc., is that your meaning?" asked Kate, carelessly. "I must take off my bonnet and shawl and finish the discussion at tea."
Miss Vernon was glad to have seen Colonel Dashwood, and heard from him, of Lord Effingham's presence in London; she could now, if necessary, mention it to Lady Desmond, without betraying nurse—but she trusted it would not be necessary, for his disinclination to accompany Colonel Dashwood in his visit, had led her to hope he had accepted her dismissal as final, and already begun to forget his engouement. She was glad too, that Colonel Dashwood was about to follow her cousin—such a mark of decided preference from a man, so deservedly esteemed as the Colonel, might, she thought, soothe her cousin's mortified spirit; and, perhaps, supply her with a real and substantial object of affection, as she woke from the vain dream, that had proved so bitterly deceitful. "I have heard dear grandpapa say, hearts were sometimes caught in the rebound."
And Fred Egerton—she had of late thought it strange that he had taken no notice whatever of her sad bereavement—she thought he would have written, at least, to Winter, for some particulars of the event; but, resolutely turning from these thoughts, she fixed her mind on the probable reasons, why she had not received a second letter from Lady Desmond; and finding her imagination less inclined to traverse the narrow breadth of the Irish channel, than to devour the wide space of the Overland route to India—she quitted the "phantom-peopled" solitude of her chamber, and joined the children in a game of "blind-man's buff." Mrs. Storey was grievously disappointed when, day after day rolled by, and Miss Vernon, not only never poured any tender revelation into her sympathising bosom, but never hinted that there was one to make. Mrs. Storey was accustomed to give advice in a number of difficult engagements, and a young lady, who was not provided with a lover, or on the look out for one, was a phenomenon uninteresting to her. Kate was so unmistakeably true, that she could not accuse her of the "depth," to which discreet, and sympathising matrons peculiarly object—so she had nothing for it, but to conclude Miss Vernon was too Blue to fall in love. This compulsory forbearance was, however, amply rewarded.
The day but one after Colonel Dashwood's visit, Kate received a letter from Lady Desmond—she wrote in rather better spirits, still dated from Dublin—she said she had postponed her departure another week, and that she feared very much the state of things about the Castle, was very deplorable, as the famine was most severe in that part of the world. The tone of the letter was more affectionate, yet there was something of constraint in it, that jarred upon Kate's feelings painfully; "But," she thought, "I will be patient—poor Georgy! she has suffered so much."