Cassandra, said: "I believe it will fit you without any
alteration."

These words would not have been enough to convince Cassandra of what she
very much wished to believe had not Ralph taken the bare hand in his and
demanded:

"Why don't you tell us you're glad?" Cassandra was so glad that the
tears ran down her cheeks. The certainty of Katharine's engagement not
only relieved her of a thousand vague fears and self-reproaches, but
entirely quenched that spirit of criticism which had lately impaired
her belief in Katharine. Her old faith came back to her. She seemed to
behold her with that curious intensity which she had lost; as a being
who walks just beyond our sphere, so that life in their presence is a
heightened process, illuminating not only ourselves but a considerable
stretch of the surrounding world. Next moment she contrasted her own lot
with theirs and gave back the ring.

"I won't take that unless William gives it me himself," she said. "Keep
it for me, Katharine."

"I assure you everything's perfectly all right," said Ralph. "Let me
tell William--"

He was about, in spite of Cassandra's protest, to reach the door, when
Mrs. Hilbery, either warned by the parlor-maid or conscious with her
usual prescience of the need for her intervention, opened the door and
smilingly surveyed them.

"My dear Cassandra!" she exclaimed. "How delightful to see you back
again! What a coincidence!" she observed, in a general way. "William is
upstairs. The kettle boils over. Where's Katharine, I say? I go to look,
and I find Cassandra!" She seemed to have proved something to her own
satisfaction, although nobody felt certain what thing precisely it was.

"I find Cassandra," she repeated.

"She missed her train," Katharine interposed, seeing that Cassandra was
unable to speak.

"Life," began Mrs. Hilbery, drawing inspiration from the portraits on
the wall apparently, "consists in missing trains and in finding--" But
she pulled herself up and remarked that the kettle must have boiled
completely over everything.

To Katharine's agitated mind it appeared that this kettle was an
enormous kettle, capable of deluging the house in its incessant showers
of steam, the enraged representative of all those household duties which
she had neglected. She ran hastily up to the drawing-room, and the rest
followed her, for Mrs. Hilbery put her arm round Cassandra and drew her
upstairs. They found Rodney observing the kettle with uneasine