The rector of the parish and one or two officers of Colonel Ormonde's old regiment, which happened to be quartered at a manufacturing town a few miles distant, made up the party at dinner that evening, and afterward they dropped off one by one to the billiard-room, till Mrs. Ormonde and De Burgh found themselves _tete-a-tete_. "Do you wear black every night because it suits you down to the ground?" he asked, after very deliberately examining her from head to foot, when he had thrown down a newspaper he had been scanning. "No; I am in mourning. Don't you see I have only black lace and jet, and a little crape?" "Ah! and that constitutes mourning, eh? Well, there is very little mourning in your laughing eyes. Who is dead?" "My mother-in-law." "Your mother-in-law! I didn't know Ormonde----" "I mean Mrs. Liddell; and I am quite sorry for her; she was wonderfully fond of me, and very kind." "Why, what an angel you must be to fascinate a _belle-mere_! Then the dear departed must be the mother of that Miss Liddell whom Ormonde was recommending to me this afternoon?" "Who--my husband? How silly! She would not suit you a bit." "Well, Ormonde thought her fortune might." "Oh, her fortune! that is another thing. But she will not be so very rich if she fulfils her promise to settle part of her fortune on my boys. You see, if their poor father had lived, he would have shared their uncle's money with his sister. Now it is too hideously unjust that my poor dear boys should have nothing, and Katherine is very properly going to make it up to them." "A young woman with a very high sense of justice. A good deal under the influence of her charming sister-in-law, I presume." "Well, rather," returned Mrs. Ormonde, with an air of superiority. "Katherine is a mere enthusiastic school-girl, easily imposed upon. Both Colonel Ormonde and myself feel bound to look after her." "Will she let you?" asked De Burgh, dryly. "Of course she will. She knows nothing of the world, or at least very little, for she did not go much into society while they were abroad." "Has she been abroad?" "Yes; Mrs. Liddell was out of health when Katherine came into this money, and they have been away in Italy and Germany and Paris for quite two years. They were on their way home when Mrs. Liddell was taken ill. She died in Paris, of typhoid fever, just before Christmas." "Two years in Italy, Germany, and Paris," repeated De Burgh; "she can't be quite a novice, then."