er memory
so many difficult speeches and abortive meetings that she was jerked
directly back to the London drawing-room, the family relics, and
the tea-table; and at the same time recalled some half-finished or
interrupted remark which she had wanted to make herself or to hear from
him--she could not remember what it was.

"I expect it was me," she said. "I was looking for my mother. It happens
every time we come to Lincoln. In fact, there never was a family so
unable to take care of itself as ours is. Not that it very much matters,
because some one always turns up in the nick of time to help us out
of our scrapes. Once I was left in a field with a bull when I was a
baby--but where did we leave the carriage? Down that street or the
next? The next, I think." She glanced back and saw that the others were
following obediently, listening to certain memories of Lincoln upon
which Mrs. Hilbery had started. "But what are you doing here?" she
asked.

"I'm buying a cottage. I'm going to live here--as soon as I can find a
cottage, and Mary tells me there'll be no difficulty about that."

"But," she exclaimed, almost standing still in her surprise, "you will
give up the Bar, then?" It flashed across her mind that he must already
be engaged to Mary.

"The solicitor's office? Yes. I'm giving that up."

"But why?" she asked. She answered herself at once, with a curious
change from rapid speech to an almost melancholy tone. "I think you're
very wise to give it up. You will be much happier."

At this very moment, when her words seemed to be striking a path into
the future for him, they stepped into the yard of an inn, and there
beheld the family coach of the Otways, to which one sleek horse was
already attached, while the second was being led out of the stable door
by the hostler.

"I don't know what one means by happiness," he said briefly, having to
step aside in order to avoid a groom with a bucket. "Why do you think I
shall be happy? I don't expect to be anything of the kind. I expect to
be rather less unhappy. I shall write a book and curse my charwoman--if
happiness consists in that. What do you think?"

She could not answer because they were immediately surrounded by other
members of the party--by Mrs. Hilbery, and Mary, Henry Otway, and
William.

Rodney went up to Katharine immediately and said to her:

"Henry is going to drive home with your mother, and I suggest that they
should put us down half-way and let us wa