But I am sure that she would have felt very sorry had she done so as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She had seated herself by the fire and taken up her novel, not with the content and pleasure which a well-conditioned girl ought to exhibit at the sight of a new story in three volumes (in which form it is always most welcome, according to my old-fashioned ideas) and a long afternoon to enjoy it in, but still with resignation and a pulse beating more quietly--when there arose sounds which indicated a visit after all. Katherine listened eagerly, then subsided as the footsteps and voices faded again, going off to the other end of the house. “Dr. Burnet to see papa,” she said half with relief, half with expectation. She had no desire to see Dr. Burnet. She could not certainly to him breathe the faintest sigh of a revelation, or relieve her mind by the most distant hint of anything that had happened. Still, he was somebody. It was rather agreeable to give him tea. The bread and butter disappeared so quickly, and it had come to be such a familiar operation to watch those strong white teeth getting through it. Certainly he had wonderful teeth. Katherine gave but a half attention to her book, listening to the sounds in the house. Her father’s door closed, he had gone in, and then after a while the bell rang and the footsteps became audible once more in the corridor. She closed her book upon her hand wondering if he would come this way, or---- He was coming this way! She pushed her chair away from the hearth, feeling that, what with the past excitement and the glow of the fire, her cheeks were ablaze. But Dr. Burnet did not seem to see this when he came in. She had gone to the window by that time to look out again upon the falling snow. It was falling, falling, silent and white and soft, in large flakes like feathers, or rather like white swan’s down. He joined her there and they stood looking at it together, and saying to each other how it seemed to close round the house and wrap everything up as in a downy mantle. “I like to see it,” the doctor said, “which is very babyish, I know. I like to see that flutter in the air and the great soft flakes dilating as they fall. But it puts a great stop to everything. You have had no visitors, I suppose, to-day?” “Oh, yes, before it came on,” said Katherine; and then she added in a voice which she felt to be strange even while she spoke, “The Rector was here.”