in, uncomprehending the fact that the shrewd
little woman was deliberately holding him with her tales till Katrine
returned.

Inside the house he heard a note, struck suddenly, and repeated over and
over in a voice little above a whisper.

"She's come in the other way. I'll tell her your lordship's wantin'
her," said Nora O'Grady, disappearing.

He looked about him in great content. Things seemed so much as he
desired them to be--the roses, the old furniture, the spinning-wheel,
the coiffed peasant woman--that he waited for Katrine's coming, fearing
that she should be less beautiful than he remembered her.

With some surprise he heard a laugh (he had not thought of her as a girl
who laughed) so merry, so infectious that he found himself wondering
what caused it as the girl herself came through the doorway to greet
him, her rose face radiant, her eyes shining, her hand outstretched.

She was more loveworthy, more imperious, than he remembered her, a
thing which bewildered him as he thought of her entreating smile, and
her wistful and approving eyes.

She wore white, so simply made as to have something statuesque about the
lines of the gown, and cut from the throat to show the poise of the head
and the curls at the back of the neck.

"I could scarcely believe Nora when she said it was you. Father is at
Marlton. I was so lonely. It is good of you to come, even if only on
business. You are riding?" she asked, regarding his clothes.

"Yes," he answered. "I am going to the world's end."

"You will be sorry," she returned, quickly. "I have been there. Carolina
is better. Stay here!"

She seated herself beside him on the settle as she spoke, and the odor
of the red rose she wore at her breast came to him with the words.

He had taken off his hat and leaned his bare brown head against the high
back of the bench.

"You see," he began, his eyelids drawn together in his own way, his eyes
fastened upon some remote distance, "I, too, have been lonely. The only
companionable person within hundreds of miles has refused me her
society. I have been driven, as it were, to the world's end."

"Do you mean me?" Katrine asked, smiling, and looking at him with eyes
full of surprise.

"It is perhaps Nora to whom I refer," he suggested, whimsically.

"She is not always companionable--Nora," Katrine returned; "and to-day
she is not pleased with me, so I like her less than usual. She purposed
to cook nettles in the potatoes, and