Her immediate action after this was to get from the library the Chesterfield Letters, the reading of which she always afterwards looked back upon as being the second milestone in her career. She devoured them, and learned countless advantageous lessons of the world therefrom. The first and chief being the value of graciousness and good manners. She now began to realise that her own were too sullen and abrupt, and a marked change in them was soon perceivable to anyone who would have cared to notice. This was during the time when she was still only on probation in her employer's favour, but it was not lost upon that astute lady; nothing ever escaped her eagle eye. And she often smiled to herself quietly when she watched the girl. Now and then they would go up to the London house for a few days and "picnic," as Her Ladyship called it, which meant taking only her personal footman to wait on her, and a maid or two for the house. Katherine went with her nearly always, and was sent shopping and allowed to go and see her family, if she wished. But she did not wish, and always met Matilda at some place for tea. The gulf between them was growing wider and wider, and while Katherine was far more agreeable than of old, Matilda stood in much greater awe of her. She felt, although she would not have owned it for the world, that her sister had really gone into another class, and she was not quite comfortable with her. Katherine seemed to look more stately and refined each time, and Matilda gloried and grieved in secret over it. Gladys accompanied her on one occasion. "I suppose Kitten will be marrying one of them gentlemen, some day," Matilda said on the way home to Laburnum Villa. "You'd never know she wasn't someone tip-top now, would you, Glad?" "No--she is quite like any of our 'real thing' lot who came into Ermantine's--they're dowdy, but you'd know they were it." "Well, I hope she'll be happy." Matilda sighed doubtfully. "Yes, she will," Gladys returned a little bitterly. "Katherine would never do anything to get herself into a mess; she is quite just, and she can be awfully kind--but she looks to the end of things and doesn't care a rush for anyone but sticks to what she wants herself. I tell you what, Tild, I used to hate her--but I don't now--I respect Katherine. She is so perfectly true." "She seems to talk different, don't you notice, Glad?" "She always did--but now more than ever; she is like our best lot--I suppose she did learn something extra at those evening classes she was so fond of?" Matilda shook her head regretfully. "I never did hold to them--she'd have been happy at home now and engaged to Charlie Prodgers all comfortable, but for that nonsense." "Oh! but, Tild, I expect what she has got is better even than that."