when she heard his step and faced him, trembling with shame and fear, and a little weakness—for this violent exercise was not quite in accordance with her weak condition. She scorned to run away farther, and clutched at such remnants of dignity as she could muster. “Mr John Mitford, I am sure,” she said, making him a stately little curtsy, and swallowing at once her fright and her laughter as best she could.

The

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“I am so glad to see you down-stairs,” said John. The mirth went out of his face when he saw her embarrassment. “Come into the drawing-room and rest—it is the coolest room in the house,” he added, opening the door. It was very good of him, Kate felt; but she burst into a peal of nervous laughter as soon as she had got into the shelter of the shaded room; and then had to exert all her strength to keep from tears.

“I am sure I beg your pardon,” she said, “for laughing. I am so ashamed of myself; but it was so{49} nice to be out of my room, and it was so funny to be in a strange house, and there was something so tempting in the closed door——”

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“I only wish you had stayed,” said John, who would himself have felt very awkward but for her confusion; “but my mother will be back presently from the village, and then we can show you the house. I am afraid you are tired. Can I get you anything? I am so sorry my mother is out.”

Kate looked at him, recovering herself, while he stammered through these expressions of solicitude. Now she saw him close at hand, he was a new kind of man. Her scrutiny was not demonstrative, and yet it was exhaustive and penetrating. He was not a foeman worthy of her steel. He was one whom it would be but little credit to subjugate, reckoning by his powers of resistance. He would be an easy, even a willing victim. But it was something else in John which startled the young manslayer. She had seen various specimens of the fashionable young man, such as Providence throws now and then in the way of country girls; and she knew the genus squire, and all that c{50}an be produced in the way of professional in such a place as Camelford. It was the county town, and twice a-year there were assizes and barristers within reach; and there were county balls and hunt balls, and various other possibilities which brought the world as represented by the county families and their visitors within reach of the banker’s 

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