John was standing in the open window hesitating whether he should plunge out into the darkness, when he heard the voices of the two ladies coming down-stairs, and all the room immediately filled with radiance and splendour. In a moment he was back again, standing, hovering over Kate, who sank into an easy-chair close to the light, and gave herself up to the delights of the promised cup of tea. He did not say a dozen words to her all the rest of the evening, but he was happy; and she lying back at her ease, with the consciousness of an admiring audience, chattered and sipped, and was happy too. It did not occur to Kate that every word she said was being closely criticised by the woman who had gone to seek her, who was basking in the pleasant rays of her youth, and smiling at all her nonsense and chatter, and looking so wistfully at her by times. She thought she had made a conquest of Mrs Mitford _too_, and was pleased and proud. “I cannot be just a little flirt and a stupid,” Kate was saying to herself, “for Mrs Mitford is fond of me _too_.” And with this pleasant sense of having an utterly indulgent audience, she rattled on more freely than she had ever before found it possible to do at Fanshawe. And Mrs Mitford made secret notes of all the nonsense, and laid up in her memory everything that was said. And then the Doctor came in from his study, and the bell was rung, and the servants appeared dimly, and sat down in a row against the further wall where it was dark; and they had prayers. Mrs Mitford was scrupulous about having a shade over the lamp--she thought it was good for the eyes--so that there was one brilliant spot round the table, and all the rest was dim and vague, darkness deepening into the corners, and intensifying to a centre in the great window full of night, the open abyss into the garden all sweet with roses and lilies, through which there puffed by times a breath of summer wind. Now that the tea-things were removed, it was Dr Mitford’s white head, and his open book, and the whiter hand which was laid upon it, that were the foremost objects in the room; and in the middle distance among the shadows was Mrs Mitford; and at the back, like ghosts, the maids and the man. Kate joined very devoutly in the prayers, and felt glad she had come down-stairs. “How good they are, how quiet it is, how nice to have prayers! and oh, what sweetness in the air!” she said to herself, when she ought to have been praying. It was novel to her, and the composition of the picture was so pretty. And they were all so kind--fond of her, indeed. Kate went back to her room, when all was over, with a soft complacency and satisfaction with herself possessing her heart. CHAPTER VII.