Kitty laughed--her short, sudden laugh was strange and sweet, and John's heart was beating. 'Well,' she said, without the faintest hesitation or shyness, 'we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you when you came home for the first time, when you used to think of nothing but the Latin authors.' 'What do you mean?' Kitty laughed again. 'You promise not to tell?' 'I promise.' This was their first confidence. 'You told your mother when I came, when you were sitting by the fire reading, that the flutter of my skirts disturbed you.' 'No, Kitty; I'm sure you never disturbed me, or at least for a long time. I wish my mother would not repeat conversations; it is most unfair.' 'Mind, you promised not to repeat what I have told you. If you do, you will get me into an awful scrape.' 'I promise.' The conversation came to a pause. Kitty looked up; and, overtaken by a sudden nervousness, John said-- 'We had better make haste; the storm is coming on; we shall get wet through.' And he made no further attempt to screw his courage up to the point of proposing, but asked himself if his powerlessness was a sign from God that he was abandoning his true vocation for a false one? He knew that he would not propose. If he did he would break his engagement when it came to the point of marriage. He was as unfitted for marriage as he was for the priesthood. He had deceived himself about the priesthood, as he was now deceiving himself about marriage. No, not deceiving himself, for at the bottom of his heart he could hear the truth. Then, why did he continue this,--it was no better than a comedy, an unworthy comedy, from which he did not seem to be able to disentangle himself; he could not say why. He could not understand himself; his brain was on fire, and he knelt down to pray, but when he prayed the thought of bringing a soul home to the fold tempted him like a star, and he asked himself if Kitty had not, in some of their conversations, shown leanings toward Catholicism. If this were so would it be right to desert her in a critical moment? IX. He had not proposed when Mr. Hare wrote for his daughter, and Kitty returned to Henfield. John at first thought that this absence was the solution of his difficulty; but he could not forget her, and it became one of his pleasures to start early in the morning, and having spent a long day with her, to return home across the downs. 'What a beautiful walk you will have, Mr. Norton! But are you not tired? Seven miles in the morning and seven in the evening!' 'But I have had the whole day to rest in.' 'What a lovely evening! Let's all walk a little way with him,' said Kitty. 'I should like to,' said the elder Miss Austin, 'but we promised father to be home for dinner. The one sure way of getting into his black books is to keep his dinner waiting, and he wouldn't dine without us.' 'Well, good-bye, dear,' said Kitty, 'I shall walk as far as the burgh.'