"She is a most earnest, energetic woman, though we are not quite of one mind on all subjects. She wants to secure Miss Liddell's assistance in getting up a bazar for the Stray Children's Home. I shall bring her to call on you."
"Don't!"--very emphatically. "I know more than enough people already, and I don't want any well-dressed beggars added to the number."
"Well, I will not interfere; but that is of little consequence. If Mrs. Needham wants to come, she'll come."
"I hate these fussy subscription-hunting women!" cried Miss Payne.
"She does _not_ hunt for subscriptions, nor does she take any special interest in religious matters, but she approves of this particular charity. She is an immensely busy woman, and writes in I don't know now many newspapers."
"Newspapers! And are our opinions made up for us by rambling hussies of _that_ description?"
Bertie burst out laughing. "If Mrs. Needham heard you!" he exclaimed. "She considers herself 'the glass of fashion and the mould of form,' the most successful and important woman in the world--the English world."
Miss Payne's only reply was a contemptuous upward toss of the head. "If you will be at Euston Square on Saturday to meet the five-fifty train from Monckton," she resumed, "I should be obliged to you--Miss Liddell travels alone--and you can dine with us if you like after, unless you are going to preach the gospel somewhere."
"Thank you. Why do you object to my preaching?"
"Because I like things done decently and in order. You are not ordained, and there are plenty of churches and chapels, God knows, for people to go to, if they would wash their faces and be decent. Now I can't stay here any longer, so good-by for the present." She took up a little basket containing an old pair of gloves, large scissors, and a ball of twine, and walked briskly away to attend to the plants in her diminutive conservatory.
De Burgh did not prolong his absence; he returned to Castleford while Katherine was still in attendance on the little invalid; but he found his stay neither pleasant nor profitable. Katherine was far too much occupied nursing her nephew to give any time or attention to her impatient admirer.
"Miss Liddell is a peculiar specimen of her sex," he growled, in his usual candid and unaffected manner, as he and Colonel Ormonde sat alone over their wine. "She never leaves those brats. She must know that it's not every girl _I_ should take the trouble of teaching, and yet she throws over each appointment I make. Does she intend to adopt your wife's boys? Adopted sons are an appendage no man would like to accept with a bride, be she ever so well endowed."