“Have I a quick eye and a light touch?” said Katherine with a laugh; “and how do you know? It is understood that every girl must have a kind heart. On the whole, I would rather write an essay, I think, than be called upon to render first aid. My hand is not at all steady if my touch is light.” She lifted one of the vases as she spoke to change its position and her hand shook. He looked at it keenly, and she, not thinking of so sudden a test, put down the vase in a hurry with a wave of colour coming over her face. “That’s not natural, that’s worry, that’s excitement,” Dr. Burnet said. “The outlook is not very exciting, is it?” cried Katherine; “one does not come in the way of much excitement at Sliplin, and I have not even seen Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks. No, it is natural, doctor. So you see how little use it would be to train me. Come to the fire and have some tea.” “I must not give myself this pleasure too often,” he said. “I find myself going back to it in imagination when I am out in the wilds. It is precious cold in my dog-cart facing the wind, Miss Katherine. I say to myself, Now the tea is being brought in in the drawing-room on the Cliff, now it is being poured out. I smell the fragrance of it driving along the bitter downs; and then I go and order some poor wretch the beastliest draught that can be compounded to avenge myself for getting no tea.” “You should give them nothing but nice things, then, when you do have tea--as now,” said Katherine. He came after her to where the little tea-table shone and sparkled in the firelight, and took from her hand the cup of tea she offered him, and stood with his back to the fire holding it in his hand. His groom was driving his dog-cart round and round the snowy path, crossing the window from time to time, a dark apparition amid the falling of the snow. What the thoughts of the groom might be, looking in through the great window on this scene of comfort, the figure of Katherine in her pretty dress and colour stooping over the table, and his master behind standing against the firelight with his cup of tea, nobody asked. Perhaps he was making little comparisons as to his lot, perhaps only thinking of the time when he should be able to thrust his hands into his pockets and the doctor should have the reins. Yet Dr. Burnet did not ignore his groom. “There,” he said, “is fate awaiting me. This time she has assumed the innocent form of John Dobbs, my groom. I have got ten miles to drive, there and back, to see Mrs. Crumples, who could do perfectly well without me, and then to the Chine for a moment to ascertain if the new man there has digested his early dinner, and then to Steephill to look after the servants’ hall. I am not good enough, except on an emergency, for the family or Lady Jane.” “I would not go more, then, if it is only for the servants’ hall,” cried Katherine.