So instinctively conscious of more than usual sympathy in her listener, Mrs. Storey chattered on uninterruptedly until it was almost time to dress for dinner.
Miss Vernon missed her affectionate motherly attendant as she arranged her unpretending toilette for dinner. Not that she was incapable of waiting on herself; but her dressing-room had always been the scene of those confidential conversations in which Mrs. O'Toole's soul delighted. She pictured to herself her loving and beloved nurse sitting alone in some room of the busy, crowded hotel, her arms folded in her apron, rocking herself to and fro, with no one near to whom she could speak in the genuine accents of real sorrow.
"My poor dear nurse, may God comfort you," murmured Kate; and then, feeling her fortitude melting away before the picture she had conjured up, she resolutely turned from it. "I have no right to damp the spirits of these friendly people with my melancholy looks."
So she braided her bright hair, and smiled at her pale cheeks, which had lost the few roses they began to gather at Hampton Court: and hearing some one trying to turn the handle of the door, opened it, and admitted little Willie, with whom she descended to the drawing-room.
"Well, indeed, my dear, you do not look so rosy or so bright as I would wish to see you," said Mrs. Storey, "not but that you look pretty always."
"Cela va sans dire," interrupted Kate, smiling.
"But," resumed Mrs. Storey, "what is the reason his lordship is gone to the Isle of Wight?"
"Will you believe me," replied Kate, gravely and impressively, "when I assure you that I am equally ignorant of, and unaccountable for, Lord Effingham's movements."