It was about twelve o’clock when Kate went up-stairs to get her hat, with the intention of setting out on foot to waylay her father. It was absolutely indispensable, she felt, that she should be the first to see him; but up to that time the two lovers had wandered about together unmolested, not caring who saw them, arm-in-arm. This was the first advantage of the engagement. Dr Mitford saw them from his library, and Mrs Mitford looked down upon them with a beating heart from her chamber-window, but neither interfered. Twenty-four hours before Mrs Mitford would have gone out herself to take care of them, or would have called Kate to her; but now that they were engaged, such precautions were vain. And other people saw them besides the father and mother. Fred Huntley, for instance, who reined in his horse, and peered over the garden-wall as he passed, with a curiosity he found it difficult to account for, saw them standing by the lilies leaning on each other, and said “Oh!” to himself, and turned back and rode home again, without giving the message he had been charged with. He had come to ask the Fanshawe Regis people to a garden-party--“But what is the use?” Fred had said to himself; and had turned, not his own head, but his horse’s, and gone back again. Parsons, too, saw the pair from Kate’s window, where she was finishing her packing. “Master will soon put a stop to that,” was Parsons’ decision. But everybody perceived at once that a new relationship had been established between the two, and that everything was changed. When Kate ran up-stairs to put on her hat, it was after two hours of this consultation and mutual confidence. It was true she had not taken much advice from him. She had closed his lips on that subject, telling him frankly that she knew her papa a great deal better than he did, and that she should take her own way; but she had given a great deal of counsel, on the other hand. He had found it impossible to do more than make a succession of little fond replies, so full had she been of advice and wisdom. “You must be, oh, so kind and gentle and nice to her,” Kate had said. “I will never forgive you if you are in the least cross or disagreeable to mamma. Yes; I like to say mamma. I never had any mother of my own, and she has been so good to me, and I love her so--not for your sake, sir, but for her own. You must never be vexed by anything she says; you must be as patient and gentle and sweet to her--but, remember, you must be firm! It will be kindest to all of us, John. If you were to appear to give in now, it would all have to be done over again; now the subject has been started, it will be much kinder to be firm.” “You need not fear in that respect,” John replied. “I think nothing but the thought of you up-stairs, and the feeling that you understood me, would have given me courage to speak; but the moment one word had been said, all had been said. Nothing can bring things back to their old condition again.”