CHAPTER VII. Lady Caergwent was thoroughly ashamed and bumbled by that unhappy evening. She looked so melancholy and subdued in the morning, with her heavy eyelids and inflamed eyes, and moved so meekly and sadly, without daring to look up, that Lady Barbara quite pitied her, and said—more kindly than she had ever spoken to her before: “I see you are sorry for the exposure last night, so we will say no more about it. I will try to forget it. I hope our friends may.” That hope sounded very much like “I do not think they will;” and truly Kate felt that it was not in the nature of things that they ever should. She should never have forgotten the sight of a little girl in that frenzy of passion! No, she was sure that their mamma and papa knew all about it, and that she should never be

