'No, no!' cried Mrs. Leyburn hastily. 'But if a nice man wants you to marry him, Catherine? Your father would have liked him—oh, I know your father would have liked him! And his manners to me are so pretty, I shouldn't mind being his mother-in-law. And the girls have no brother, you know, dear. Your father was always so sorry about that.'
She spoke with pleading agitation, her own tempting imaginations—the pallor, the latent storm of Catherine's look—exciting her more and more.
Catherine was silent a moment, then she caught her mother's hand again.
'Dear little mother—dear, kind little mother! You are an angel, you always are. But I think, if you'll keep me, I'll stay.'
And she once more rested her head clingingly on Mrs. Leyburn's knee.
'But do you—do you love him, Catherine?'
'I love you, mother, and the girls, and my life here.'
'Oh dear,' sighed Mrs. Leyburn, as though addressing a third person, the tears in her mild eyes, 'she won't, and she would like it, and so should I!'
Catherine rose, stung beyond bearing.
'And I count for nothing to you, mother!' her deep voice quivering. 'You could put me aside, you and the girls, and live as though I had never been!'