n't imagine what you mean.'

Mrs. Thornburgh felt a rush of inward contempt for so much obtuseness.

'Well, then, _he is in love with Catherine!_' she said abruptly, laying
her hand on Mrs. Leyburn's knee, and watching the effect.

'With Catherine!' stammered Mrs. Leyburn; '_with Catherine!_'

The idea was amazing to her. She took up her knitting with trembling
fingers, and went on with it mechanically a second or two. Then laying
it down--'Are you quite sure? has he told you?'

'No, but one has eyes,' said Mrs. Thornburgh hastily. 'William and I
have seen it from the very first day. And we are both certain that on
Tuesday she made him understand in some way or other that she wouldn't
marry him, and that is why he went off to Ullswater, and why he made up
his mind to go south before his time is up.'

'Tuesday?' cried Mrs. Leyburn. 'In that walk, do you mean, when
Catherine looked so tired afterward? You think he proposed in that
walk?'

She was in a maze of bewilderment and excitement.

'Something like it--but if he did, she said "No;" and what I want to
know is _why_ she said "No."'

'Why, of course, because she didn't care for him!' exclaimed Mrs.
Leyburn, opening her blue eyes wider and wider. 'Catherine's not like
most girls; she would always know what she felt, and would never keep a
man in suspense.'

'Well, I don't somehow believe,' said Mrs. Thornburgh boldly, 'that she
doesn't care for him. He is just the young man Catherine might care for.
You can see that yourself.'

Mrs. Leyburn once more laid down her knitting and stared at her visitor.
Mrs. Thornburgh, after all her meditations, had no very precise idea as
to _why_ she was at that moment in the Burwood living-room bombarding
Mrs. Leyburn in this fashion. All she knew was that she had sallied
forth determined somehow to upset the situation, just as one gives
a shake purposely to a bundle of spillikins on the chance of more
favorable openings. Mrs. Leyburn's mind was just now playing the part of
spillikins, and the vicar's wife was shaking it viciously, though with
occasional qualms as to the lawfulness of the process.

'You think Catherine does care for him?' resumed Mrs. Leyburn
tremulously.

'Well isn't he just the kind of man one would suppose Catherine would
like?' repeated Mrs. Thornburgh, persuasively: 'he is a clergyman, and
she likes serious people; and he's sensible and nice and well-mannered.
And then he can talk about books, just