ng what
had happened on that day, Mrs. Presty looked at him with some anxiety
on her daughter's account, while he was reading the message on Randal's
card. There was little to see. His fine face expressed a quiet sorrow,
and he sighed as he put the card back in his pocket.

An interval of silence followed. Captain Bennydeck was thinking over the
message which he had just read. Catherine and her mother were looking
at him with the same interest, inspired by very different motives.
The interview so pleasantly begun was in some danger of lapsing into
formality and embarrassment, when a new personage appeared on the scene.

Kitty had returned in triumph from her ride. "Mamma! the donkey did more
than gallop--he kicked, and I fell off. Oh, I'm not hurt!" cried the
child, seeing the alarm in her mother's face. "Tumbling off is such a
funny sensation. It isn't as if you fell on the ground; it's as if the
ground came up to _you_ and said--Bump!" She had got as far as that,
when the progress of her narrative was suspended by the discovery of a
strange gentleman in the room.

The smile that brightened the captain's face, when Kitty opened the
door, answered for him as a man who loved children. "Your little girl,
Mrs. Norman?" he said.

"Yes."

(A common question and a common reply. Nothing worth noticing, in either
the one or the other, at the time--and yet they proved to be important
enough to turn Catherine's life into a new course.)

In the meanwhile, Kitty had been whispering to her mother. She wanted
to know the strange gentleman's name. The Captain heard her. "My name is
Bennydeck," he said; "will you come to me?"

Kitty had heard the name mentioned in connection with a yacht. Like all
children, she knew a friend the moment she looked at him. "I've
seen your pretty boat, sir," she said, crossing the room to Captain
Bennydeck. "Is it very nice when you go sailing?"

"If you were not going back to London, my dear, I should ask your
mamma to let me take you sailing with me. Perhaps we shall have another
opportunity."

The Captain's answer delighted Kitty. "Oh, yes, tomorrow or next day!"
she suggested. "Do you know where to find me in London? Mamma, where do
I live, when I am in London?" Before her mother could answer, she hit
on a new idea. "Don't tell me; I'll find it for myself. It's on
grandmamma's boxes, and they're in the passage."

Captain Bennydeck's eyes followed her, as she left the room, with
an express