inion. William, do you know what that child has been
doing?"

He looked up from his writing.

"Ah!--what have you been discovering?"

"Grosville told you the story last night."

Ashe nodded.

"Well--Kitty wrote to Alice this morning--and they met. Alice has kept
her room since--prostrate--so the Sowerbys tell me. I have just had a
note from Mrs. Sowerby. Wasn't it an extraordinary, an indelicate thing
to do?"

Ashe studied the frowning lady a moment--so large and daunting in her
black silk and white lace. She seemed to suggest all those aspects of
the English Sunday for which he had most secret dislike--its Pharisaism
and dulness and heavy meals. He felt himself through and through Lady
Kitty's champion.

"I should have thought it very natural," was his reply.

Lady Grosville threw up her hands.

"Natural!--when she knows--"

"How can she know?" cried Ashe, hotly. "How can such a child know or
guess anything? She only knows that there is some black charge against
her mother, on which no one will enlighten her. How can they? But
meanwhile her mother is ostracized, and she feels herself dragged into
the disgrace, not understanding why or wherefore. Could anything be more
pathetic--more touching?"

In his heat of feeling he got up, and began to pace up and down. Lady
Grosville's countenance expressed first astonishment--then wavering.

"Oh--of course, it's very sad," she said--"extremely sad. But I should
have thought Kitty was clever enough to understand at least that Alice
must have some grave reason for breaking with her mother--"

"Don't you all forget what a child she is," said Ashe, indignantly--"not
yet nineteen!"

"Yes, that's true," said Lady Grosville, grudgingly. "I must confess I
find it difficult to judge her fairly. She's so different from my own
girls."

Ashe hastily agreed. Then it struck him as odd that he should have
fallen so quickly into this position of Kitty's defender with her
father's family; and he drew in his horns. He resumed his work, and Lady
Grosville sat for a while, her hands in her lap, quietly observing him.

At last she said:

"So you think, William, I had better leave Kitty alone?"

"About what?" Ashe raised his curly head with a laugh. "Don't put too
much responsibility on me. I know nothing about young ladies."

"I don't know that I do--much," said Lady Grosville, candidly. "My own
daughters are so exceptional."

Ashe held his peace. Distant cousins as they w