"He was for some time in Italy--my cousin knew him there," replied Kate. "I'm sure he seemed the quietest and most obliging man I ever met," said Mrs. Storey eagerly; "and it is just envy because he is richer and grander than themselves, that makes people tell ill-natured stories of him." "I do not fancy Lord Effingham is an amiable man," said Kate, quietly; "I do not think I ever saw him do the agreeable so readily as the day you were with us." "Hum," said Langley, gravely. "Then it was you, Charlotte, that kept his lordship on his P's and Q's. "Now, Miss Vernon, may we ask you for a little music?" "Not this evening, dear Mrs. Storey," said Kate, deprecatingly, and shaking her head. "To-morrow as much as you like, but to-night I feel quite unmusical." "Well, I dare say you feel low at parting with Lady Desmond," said Mrs. Storey. "And nurse," added Kate. So the evening wore away, and at last Kate was free to retire to the grateful solitude of her own room, to gather comfort and support from "communing with her own heart," and finally to rest. The day at Mrs. Storey's was very tranquil and rather monotonous. The eight o'clock breakfast was quickly followed by the departure of Mr. Storey for the city, and the eldest girl to school. Kate volunteered the task of inspecting Masters Willie and Bobby at their studies, thereby affording another hour to their mamma for the dear delight of the kitchen and the store-room. Kate saw little of her hostess before the one o'clock dinner, until which time she pursued her practising or her reading, her work or her thoughts uninterruptedly. Mr. Storey never returned to tea until seven o'clock, when he was usually ravenous and inaudible until after the consumption of divers viands. He often brought home some dapper city friend, with an evident wish to make his house agreeable to Miss Vernon, and under the usual impression entertained by men of his stamp, that beaux are a necessary of life to young ladies. This was the only real drawback in Kate's estimation to her _séjour_ at "Raby Villas"--the euphonious appellation of Mr. Storey's abode. Mrs. Storey too meditated a party--for, with all her good nature, Kate was a much more important personage in her estimation, fresh from the society of earls and countesses--the _crême de la crême_--than when she walked almost daily over to Brompton, with no attendant save a great dog, and received three and sixpence a lesson for music. The letters for which Kate had looked so anxiously were as usual in cases of anticipation, disappointing and perplexing; they did not arrive till the day after that on which they might have reached; Lady Desmond's ran thus:-- "DEAR KATE,