The entrance of the Colonel here cut short their private conference; he, like his granddaughter, expressed surprise and pleasure, not unmingled with uneasiness, at the organist's appearance, and, after some discussion, he agreed to dine with them, at a somewhat earlier hour than usual; as the softness of a June evening could not possibly, they all agreed, be more injurious than the morning air. "And let us send for Winter and his wife," concluded the Colonel. Once more the little circle met round the hospitable board in the Priory dining-room, and though the absence of many familiar ornaments, already packed, gave a look of barrenness to the pretty sitting room, and bespoke the approaching departure, the party was not a sad one; each tried to cheer the others, and in so doing roused himself. So ended the last dinner at the Priory, and never again did the same party meet under the same roof. Some such presentiment touched Kate's heart, and gave a tenderness to her attentions, an under current of feeling even to the fanciful sallies and playful arguments with which she strove to enliven her guests, which, gracefully as she ever played the part of hostess, lent an inexpressible charm to all she uttered; and even Mrs. Winter, usually unobservant, seemed impressed by the peculiar sweetness of her voice and manner; and often, in after life, did Kate look back to that last evening as singularly agreeable, despite the approaching separation. The last! Oh, how much of tenderness clings round that word--the last word or look, the last even of suffering, what a grasp, they take of the memory; as though the soul, in itself immortal, cannot familiarise its faculties with any thing so finite, so sad, so passing as the last. CHAPTER IV. A NEW WORLD. However kind and true by nature, a man who has risen to, can never quite understand the feeling, of one who has fallen from higher fortunes; the seeming trifles which can elate, or depress, are but trifles to the former; nor can any amount of sincere friendship ever reveal to him the saddening effect which some insignificant occurrence, he would scarcely perceive, produces on the other; he cannot dream with what terrible and intense conviction, the sudden consciousness of total change, flashes on the mind that had happily half-forgotten it, at some accident of daily life, to him, nothing, in itself, a mere "_contretemps_," which, in brighter days would have only raised a smile, but which is now too sure an indication of the current; straw though it be.