So, after selecting the goods her mother needed at Kip's, Katherine was going up Pearl Street, when she heard herself called in a familiar and urgent voice. At the same moment a door was flung open; and Mrs. Gordon, running down the few steps, put her hand upon the girl's shoulder. "Oh, my dear, this is a piece of good fortune past belief! Come into my lodgings. Oh, indeed you shall! I will have no excuse. Surely you owe Dick and me some reward after the pangs we have suffered for you." She was leading Katherine into the house as she spoke; and Katherine had not the will, and therefore not the power, to oppose her. She placed the girl by her side on the sofa; she took her hands, and, with a genuine grief and love, told her all that "poor Dick" had suffered and was still suffering for her sake. "It was the most unprovoked challenge, my dear; and Neil Semple behaved like a savage, I assure you. When Dick was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, a gentleman would have been satisfied, and accepted the mediation of the seconds; but Neil, in his blind passion, broke the code to pieces. A man who can do nothing but be in a rage is a ridiculous and offensive animal. Have you seen him since his recovery? For I hear that he has crawled out of his bed again." "Him I have not seen." "Gracious powers, miss! Is that all you say, 'Him I have not seen'? Make me patient with so insensible a creature! Here am I almost distracted with my three months' anxiety and poor Dick, so gone as to be past knowledge, breaking his true heart for a sight of you; and you answer me as if I had asked, 'Pray, have you seen the newspaper to-day?'" Then Katherine covered her face, and sobbed with a hopelessness and abandon that equally fretted Mrs. Gordon. "I wish I knew one corner of this world inaccessible to lovers," she cried. "Of all creatures, they are the most ridiculous and unreasonable. Now, what are you crying for, child?" "If I could only see Richard,--only see him for one moment!" "That is exactly what I am going to propose. He will get better when he has seen you. I will call a coach, and we will go at once." "Alas! Go I dare not. My father and my mother!" "And Dick,--what of Dick, poor Dick, who is dying for you?" She went to the door, and gave the order for a coach. "Your lover, Katherine. Child, have you no heart? Shall I tell Dick you would not come with me?" "Be not so cruel to me. That you have seen me at all, why need you say?" "Oh! indeed, miss, do not imagine yourself the only person who values the truth. Dick always asks me, 'Have you seen her?' 'Tis my humour to be truthful, and I am always swayed by my inclination. I shall feel it to be my duty to inform him how indifferent you are. Katherine, put on your bonnet again. Here also are my veil and cloak. No one will perceive that it is you. It is the part of humanity, I assure you. Do so much for a poor soul who is at the grave's mouth." "My father, I promised him"--