“It is not half so queer as you think,” said Mrs Mitford, smiling; “you will find it is quite natural when you are a little better. But we must not talk till the doctor comes. He gave orders you were to be kept perfectly quiet. Perhaps he will relax when he sees how well you are, if you keep quite quiet now.” “When will he come!” said Kate, with a sigh of impatience; and then in her hasty way she put up her face, as well as she was able, to her kind nurse. “I wonder if mamma was like you,” cried the motherless creature, with a few tears which came as suddenly as the laughter. It was Kate’s way; but Mrs Mitford did not know that, and was wonderfully touched, and kissed her, and bathed her face, and smoothed her hair, and did a hundred little tender offices for her, making her “nice,” as an invalid should look. “My hair was much the same colour when I was your age, and I had just such heaps of it,” the kind woman said, combing out and caressing those great shining coils. “I shall be just the same-looking woman when I am old,” was the comment Kate made to herself; and the thought almost made her laugh again. But this time she had warning of the inclination, and restrained herself; and thus the morning wore away. When the doctor came he pronounced her a great deal better, and Kate lay wondering, and listened with all her ears to the conversation that went on in hushed tones near her bed-side. “Not light-headed at all?” said the doctor; “not talking nonsense?” “And oh,” cried Kate to herself, “if I did not talk nonsense, it is the first time in all my life!” “Oh no, she has been quite rational--quite herself,” said Mrs Mitford; and Kate, exercising intense self-control, did not laugh. If she had ever been called rational before, it would not have been so hard; and how little they must know about her! “It is rather nice to be considered sensible,” she said within herself; but she could not suppress the laughing mischief in her eye, which the doctor perceived when he turned round to feel her pulse again. “She looks as if she were laughing at us all,” he said. “Miss Crediton, tell me do you feel quite well? able to get up this moment and ride home?” “I am very well when I lie still,” said Kate; “but I don’t want to go home, please. _She_ is not at home; I am obliged to call her _she_, which is very uncivil, because nobody will tell me her name.” “I can do that much for you,” said the doctor. “This is Mrs Mitford of Fanshawe Regis; and I can tell you you were in luck to be run away with close to her door.” “You don’t need to tell me that,” said Kate. “Please, Mrs Mitford, will you kiss me, now we are introduced? I am Kate Crediton--perhaps you know; and I am sure I don’t know why I did not talk nonsense all last night, for they say I always do at home.”