The conversation above recorded was, it may be supposed, very far from being the last on so tempting a subject. In short, the two who had such a topic to themselves did with it what two people invariably do with a private occasion for talk,--produced it perpetually, had little snatches of discussion over it, which were broken off as soon as any stranger appeared, and gradually got into a confidential and mysterious intimacy. Kate, to do her justice, had no evil intention. None of the girls about her knew John sufficiently well to discuss him. They had seen him but for these two days, when he had been _distrait_, preoccupied, and suffering; and indeed her friends did not admire her choice, and Madeline Winton, who was her chief intimate, had not hesitated to say so. “Of course I don’t doubt Mr Mitford is very nice,” had been Miss Winton’s deliverance; “but if you really ask my _opinion_, Kate, I must say he did not captivate me.” “I did not want him to captivate you,” Kate had answered, with some heat. But nevertheless it is discouraging to have your confidences about your betrothed thus summarily checked. And on the whole, perhaps, it was more piquant to have Fred Huntley for a confidant than Madeline Winton. He never snubbed her. To be sure, with him it was not possible to indulge in very much enthusiasm over the excellences of the beloved; but that was not in any case Kate’s way; and the matter, without doubt, was full of difficulties. It was hard to know how to overcome Mr Crediton’s passive but unfaltering resistance--how to bring the father and the lover to something like an understanding of each other--how to satisfy John and smooth down his asperities and make him content with his position. “It is not that he is discontented,” Kate said, with an anxious pucker on her brow, on one of those evenings when she had stolen a moment from her cares and her guests. “It is not that he is discontented,” she repeated; “I hope he is too fond of me for that--but----” “I don’t understand how such a word as discontent could be spoken in the same breath with his name,” said Fred--“a lucky fellow! No, surely it cannot be that.” “I told you it was not discontent,” Kate said, almost sharply; “and as for lucky and all that, you always make me angry with your nonsense--when we are talking gravely of a subject which is of so much importance; at least it is of great importance to me.” “I think you might know by this time,” said Fred, with soft reproach, “that everything that concerns you is important to me.” She looked up at him with that soft glow of gratitude and thanks in her eyes which had subdued John, and half extended to him the tips of her fingers. “Yes, indeed,” she said, “you are very, very kind. I don’t know why I talk to you like this. I can’t talk so to anybody else. And I do so want some one to feel for me. Is it very selfish? I am afraid it is.”