The day at Mrs. Storey's was very tranquil and rather monotonous. The eight o'clock breakfast was quickly followed by the departure of Mr. Storey for the city, and the eldest girl to school. Kate volunteered the task of inspecting Masters Willie and Bobby at their studies, thereby affording another hour to their mamma for the dear delight of the kitchen and the store-room. Kate saw little of her hostess before the one o'clock dinner, until which time she pursued her practising or her reading, her work or her thoughts uninterruptedly.
Mr. Storey never returned to tea until seven o'clock, when he was usually ravenous and inaudible until after the consumption of divers viands. He often brought home some dapper city friend, with an evident wish to make his house agreeable to Miss Vernon, and under the usual impression entertained by men of his stamp, that beaux are a necessary of life to young ladies. This was the only real drawback in Kate's estimation to her _séjour_ at "Raby Villas"--the euphonious appellation of Mr. Storey's abode.
Mrs. Storey too meditated a party--for, with all her good nature, Kate was a much more important personage in her estimation, fresh from the society of earls and countesses--the _crême de la crême_--than when she walked almost daily over to Brompton, with no attendant save a great dog, and received three and sixpence a lesson for music.
The letters for which Kate had looked so anxiously were as usual in cases of anticipation, disappointing and perplexing; they did not arrive till the day after that on which they might have reached; Lady Desmond's ran thus:--
"Though peculiarly averse to writing, I feel I must keep my promise to you. We had a tiresome journey and a rough passage, but except fatigue, I am well enough; nurse who has had red eyes ever since she bid you good bye, desires her love and duty, and says she will not write this time; she has just been sitting with me; I was consoling her, at least trying to do so. This place looks wretched and deserted, worse than when I was last here. They say every one is ruined; I wonder I am not; but I can write no more, my head and heart are both aching. You shall hear from me when I reach Castle Desmond,"