The next morning the new world began frankly, as if it was nothing out of the usual, as if it had already been for years. When Katherine, a little late after her somewhat melancholy vigils, awoke, she heard already the bustle of the houseful of people, so different from the stillness which had been the rule for years. She heard doors opening and shutting, steps moving everywhere, Sir Charles’ voice calling loudly from below, the loud tinkling of Stella’s bell, which rang upstairs near her maid’s room. Katherine’s first instinctive thought was a question whether that maid would look less worried--whether, poor thing, she had dreamt of bags and bandboxes all night. And then there came the little quaver, thrilling the air of a child’s cry; poor little dissipated Job, after his vigil with his father, crying to be awoke so early--the poor little boy who had tried to kick at her with his little naked feet, so white in the dimness of the corridor, on the night before. It was with the strangest sensation that Katherine got hurriedly out of bed, with a startled idea that perhaps her room might be wanted, in which there was no reason. At all events, the house had passed into new hands, and was hers no more. Hannah came to her presently, pale and holding her breath. She had seen Job fly at the ayah, kicking her with the little feet on which she had just succeeded in forcing a pair of boots. “He said as now he could hurt her, as well as I could understand his talk. Oh! Miss Katherine, and such a little teeny boy, and to do that! But I said as I knew you would never let a servant be kicked in your house.” “Neither will my sister, Hannah--but they are all tired and strange, and perhaps a little cross,” said Katherine, apologetically. She went downstairs to find the breakfast-table in all the disorder that arises after a large meal--the place at which little Job had been seated next to his father littered by crumbs and other marks of his presence, and the butler hastily bringing in a little tea-pot to a corner for her use. “Sir Charles, Miss Katherine, he’s gone out; he’s inspecting of the horses in the stables; and my lady has had her breakfast in her room, and it’s little master as has made such a mess of the table.” “Never mind, Harrison,” said Katherine. “I should like to say, Miss Katherine,” said Harrison, “as I’ll go, if you please, this day month.” “Oh, don’t be in a hurry!” she cried. “I have been speaking to Mrs. Simmons. Don’t desert the house in such haste. Wait till you see how things go on.” “I’d stay with you Miss Katherine, to the last hour of my life; and I don’t know as I couldn’t make up my mind to a medical gentleman’s establishment, though it’s different to what I’ve been used to--but I couldn’t never stop in a place like this.” “You don’t know in the least what is going to happen here. Please go now, and leave me to my breakfast. I will speak to you later on.”