With a smile still lingering on her lips, Katie hears the door close after Walter Reeves; then she goes up-stairs to join the rest of her household. A calm family scene meets her view as she throws open the drawing-room door. The room is not a large one; but what it wants in size is amply atoned for by the exquisite taste with which everything is arranged and grouped. A few strokes of the pen might describe the well-chosen accessories of curtains, sofas, and carpet; but it would take artistic skill to portray the many touches of prettiness and beauty to be found there.
The few paintings that hang on the walls are marvels of delicate colouring and completeness of design; the ornaments of various kinds about the room are most of them due to feminine cleverness; screens, cushions, chair-covers, all shew that busy graceful fingers have been at work; but they were not Katie's fingers—not the outcome of Katie's industry. She has a perfect abhorrence of fancy-work; rarely is she to be found sitting down like other girls to puzzle her head with intricacies of knitting, lace-making, or embroidering. Her plea is: 'I haven't patience for that sort of thing, nor have I taste or time for it. Here Nellie, my dear, you puzzle out this pattern; and while you are doing it, I'll play any amount of pieces you like—Beethovens, Mozarts, Mendelssohns, or Schuberts, which you choose.'
So patient Nellie of the artistic mind and home-loving tastes would pick up her sister's discarded work, and skilfully mould it into wondrous results of aptitude and dexterity.
Nellie is sitting at the table on this evening, bending over a volume of travels. She who rarely leaves the house herself, yet likes to read of scenes of wild adventure and foreign travel, with all their detail of fervid luxuriance and gorgeous scenery. Her delight is in tales of peril and bravery. A piece of bright-coloured embroidery lies beside her. She is evidently reading and working by turns.
At first glance of Katie's youngest sister, one is struck by her sweet countenance and delicately moulded face, the calm blue eyes and thoughtful look. But at the next glance, one sees that her figure is hopelessly deformed. Some blight has fallen on her in early childhood, and closed to her for ever the active pursuits and enjoyments of life. But Nellie is happy and contented in her placid way; she has resources and pleasures of which Katie has never even time to think. The school of weakness and suffering has taught her many a salutary, many a holy lesson. At the further end of the room sits Mr Grey, the master of the household, a thin, wiry, irritable, high-principled man, with white hair and close-cropped white head—a man who thinks himself a very martinet in his strict ideas of discipline on board ship; but who is a tame enough, easily ruled ruler in his own house on shore. He flatters himself he is very firm with Katie, yet she manages to have her way in most things. Mr Grey, with a small table before him, is engaged with navy statistics, making calculations that will open the eyes of the Admiralty some of these days, he thinks.
His wife is the only other member of the family party, and she is a soft, pillowy, amiable, motherly woman, with no very demonstrative ideas of her own, but rather ever proving herself a mild reflector of the thoughts and wishes of the various stronger minds of her family.
It is on this placid scene that Katie dashes like a brilliant meteor. Somehow, she never can do anything quietly. She is never the one to steal into a corner and settle herself down there, lest she should disturb any other person; rather she makes the constant sense of her presence felt; there is always something in her movements that draws attention to her and centres it there. Thus, when she opens the door, they all gaze up at her. Mrs Grey, who has been dozing off now and then into calm forgetfulness, picks up her knitting and looks at her daughter with a sigh. The sigh is one of sympathy, for she knows the depth of the mortification under which her daughter has been labouring, and does not know the panacea has come. She does not know Katie has armed herself for combat, and is quite prepared for a tilt with Mrs Best when the opportunity arrives. No red-skinned Indian with war-paint and tomahawk is more ready for action with a rival chief, than Katie is to assert her power over the Admiral's daughter. True, her weapons are only woman's witchery; true, the disputed prize is only a warrior's heart; yet the strife promises to be difficult, perhaps prolonged. In other words, Miss Grey has said to herself: 'If Sir Herbert makes me an offer, I will marry him; and then Laura Best will discover that even her influence does not equal mine.'
'Where have you been all this time, Katie?' asks Mrs Grey in a plaintive tone.
'Down in the dining-room.'
'What! in that cold room, alone? You should not mope so, my dear. You should come up here with us, and be cheerful.'