s
broke into a smile,--but a smile so tortured, constrained, and nipped in
the bud, that it only gave an expression of pain to the features it was
forbidden to enliven.

"And what brings the Lord Hastings hither?" asked the baroness, in a
formal tone.

"Can you never allow for motive the desire of pleasure, fair dame?"

That peculiar and exquisite blush, which at moments changed the whole
physiognomy of Katherine, flitted across her smooth cheek, and vanished.
She said gravely,--

"So much do I allow it in you, my lord, that hence my question."

"Katherine!" exclaimed Hastings, in a voice of tender reproach, and
attempting to seize her hand, forgetful of all other presence save that
to which the blush, that spoke of old, gave back the ancient charm.

Katherine cast a hurried and startled glance over the maiden group,
and her eye detected on the automaton faces one common expression of
surprise. Humbled and deeply displeased, she rose from the awful chair,
and then, as suddenly reseating herself, she said, with a voice and
lip of the most cutting irony, "My lord chamberlain is, it seems, so
habituated to lackey his king amidst the goldsmiths and grocers, that he
forgets the form of language and respect of bearing which a noblewoman
of repute is accustomed to consider seemly."

Hastings bit his lip, and his falcon eye shot indignant fire.

"Pardon, my Lady of Bonville and Harrington, I did indeed forget what
reasons the dame of so wise and so renowned a lord hath to feel pride
in the titles she hath won. But I see that my visit hath chanced out of
season. My business, in truth, was rather with my lord, whose counsel in
peace is as famous as his truncheon in war!"

"It is enough," replied Katherine, with a dignity that rebuked the
taunt, "that Lord Bonville has the name of an honest man,--who never
rose at court."

"Woman, without one soft woman-feeling!" muttered Hastings, between his
ground teeth, as he approached the lady and made his profound obeisance.
The words were intended only for Katherine's ear, and they reached it.
Her bosom swelled beneath the brocaded gorget, and when the door closed
on Hastings, she pressed her hands convulsively together, and her dark
eyes were raised upward.

"My child, thou art entangling thy skein," said the lady of Bonville,
as she passed one of the maidens, towards the casement, which she
opened,--"the air to-day weighs heavily!"

CHAPTER VI. JOY FOR ADAM, AND HOPE