"I suppose you used to visit the pictures at Hampton Court frequently?"
"Yes, yet not as often as I intended--something always happened to interfere with our visits--and I am so fond of Vandyke: his men and women are so noble-looking, one can hardly associate them with the wretched period in which they lived; but I suppose his paintings picture his own mind rather than the individuals he meant to depict."
"Well, I would rather pay for my own portrait than another person's," said Mr. Storey; "and I think Smith has hit off both myself and Mrs. S. right well."
"Your pictures are certainly very like," said Miss Vernon politely.
"But the most unmitigated daubs," remarked Langley.
"I never enjoyed any pictures so much as those at Hampton Court," remarked Mrs. Storey. "But then Lord Effingham told me about them so nicely; he knew them all."
"Lord Effingham--a distinguished cicerone, Charlotte," remarked her brother. "He was very well known in the London world some five or six years ago, though one never heard much good of him--has he not been abroad for a long time?"
This question was addressed to Miss Vernon, in total disregard of Mrs. Storey's energetic hems and warning frowns when he spoke disparagingly of the earl.
"He was for some time in Italy--my cousin knew him there," replied Kate.
"I'm sure he seemed the quietest and most obliging man I ever met," said Mrs. Storey eagerly; "and it is just envy because he is richer and grander than themselves, that makes people tell ill-natured stories of him."
"I do not fancy Lord Effingham is an amiable man," said Kate, quietly; "I do not think I ever saw him do the agreeable so readily as the day you were with us."
"Hum," said Langley, gravely. "Then it was you, Charlotte, that kept his lordship on his P's and Q's.
"Now, Miss Vernon, may we ask you for a little music?"
"Not this evening, dear Mrs. Storey," said Kate, deprecatingly, and shaking her head. "To-morrow as much as you like, but to-night I feel quite unmusical."
"Well, I dare say you feel low at parting with Lady Desmond," said Mrs. Storey.
So the evening wore away, and at last Kate was free to retire to the grateful solitude of her own room, to gather comfort and support from "communing with her own heart," and finally to rest.