She looked in vain for Martin at church on the following Sunday; she dawdled through the churchyard, and her friend, "My Lord Wellor's valet," overtook her: he thought she was lingering for him. She did not drive him away, as she had discarded poor Martin Gray, with a laugh, but she was evidently thinking of some one else. With all his vanity, he guessed as much, and quitted her to join some gay ladies'-maids, who were flaunting along the meadow path. Katy never noticed them, though they watched her all across the meadow, out at the gate, up the lane to the turnstile, where she stood for a while, but turned back, and so met the giddy party again. It was now her turn to feel the bitterness of laughter, when directed against herself; for the prettiest of the party, a rival of hers in the affections of Lewis the valet, cried out, "Well, Mistress Kate, were you looking for your sweetheart, Martin Gray? It is all of no use, my dear; he is gone for a soldier." "Gone for a soldier!" Katy passed the giddy waiting-women and their obsequious attendant, and hastened to the nursery garden of Martin's father. He was sitting alone beneath the apple boughs. The pathway was unswept, the clove pinks streeling over the neat box borders. He looked very sad, indeed. "Uncle," said Katy, with white lips, "where is Martin?" "Gone for a soldier, Katy," replied the old gardener, striking his gnarled oaken stick angrily on the gravel path. "Oh, uncle!" Katy burst into a passionate fit of weeping. "It is no use crying now, Katy," said Gray, "it is too late;" and rising, but not without difficulty, for he was an infirm man, "well stricken in years," he walked towards the cottage, Katy following him like a culprit. The elder Gray did not close his door upon his pretty niece; in truth, he could only suspect her as being the cause of his boy's departure, for Martin had formed some military acquaintances latterly; but one of; his son's last acts had been to collect some gifts, which this father knew to be "keepsakes from Katy," and these were lying on the window-sill, packed up and addressed to "Miss Katharine, at the Hall."