Already the days of her heirship seemed to have been wafted away far back, and the routine of the present was becoming familiar. There was nothing oppressive in it. Yet she could not look forward. Hope had long been a stranger to her. Never, since her mother's death, since she had fully realized the bearings of her own reprehensible act, had she known the joy of a light heart. Some such ideas were flitting through her mind as she was diligently copying Mrs. Needham's lucubrations one afternoon, when the parlor maid opened the door and said, as she handed her a card, "The lady is in the drawing-room, ma'am." The lady was Mrs. Ormonde. "Is Mrs. Needham at home?" "No, ma'am." It was rather a trial, this, meeting with Ada, but Katherine could not shirk it. She did not want to have any quarrel with the boys' mother, so she ascended to the drawing-room. There stood the pretty, smartly dressed little woman, all airy elegance, but the usually smiling lips were compressed, and the smooth white brow was wrinkled with a frown. She was examining a book of photographs--most of them signed by the donors. "Oh, Katherine! how do you do?" she said, sharply, and not in the least abashed by any memory of their last meeting. "I am up in town for a few days, and I couldn't leave without seeing you. You see I have too much feeling to turn _my_ back on an old friend, however injured I may be by circumstances over which you had no control. You are not looking well, Katie; you are so white, and your eyes don't seem to be half open." "I am quite well, I assure you," said Katherine, composedly, and avoiding a half-offered kiss by drawing a chair forward for her visitor. "I wish I could say as much," returned Mrs. Ormonde, with a deep sigh, throwing herself into it. "I am perfectly wretched; Ormonde is quite intolerable at times since everything has collapsed. I am sure I often wish you had never done anything for the boys or me, and then we should never have fancied ourselves rich. Of course I don't blame you; you meant well, but it is all very unfortunate." "It is indeed; but is it possible that Colonel Ormonde is so unmanly as to--" "Unmanly?" interrupted his wife. "Manly, you mean. Of course he revenges himself on me. Not always. He is all right sometimes; but if anything goes wrong, then I suffer. Fortunately I was prudent, and made little savings, with which I am--but"--interrupting herself--"that is not worth speaking about." "I am sorry you are unhappy, Ada," said Katherine, with her ready sympathy.