you. I will surely come, for if there is danger of spattering my gown,
and he bids me stay at home, I shall go galloping after him and overtake
him when it is too late to send me back. I have so much to tell you." I
wish I knew more about the visit. Poor Miss Katharine! it made us sad to
look over these treasures of her girlhood. There were her compositions
and exercise-books; some samplers and queer little keepsakes; withered
flowers and some pebbles and other things of like value, with which
there was probably some pleasant association. "Only think of her keeping
them all her days," said I to Kate. "I am continually throwing some
relic of the kind away, because I forget why I have it!"

There was a box in the lower part which Kate was glad to find, for she
had heard her mother wonder if some such things were not in existence.
It held a crucifix and a mass-book and some rosaries, and Kate told me
Miss Katharine's youngest and favorite brother had become a Roman
Catholic while studying in Europe. It was a dreadful blow to the family;
for in those days there could have been few deeper disgraces to the
Brandon family than to have one of its sons go over to popery. Only Miss
Katharine treated him with kindness, and after a time he disappeared
without telling even her where he was going, and was only heard from
indirectly once or twice afterward. It was a great grief to her. "And
mamma knows," said Kate, "that she always had a lingering hope of his
return, for one of the last times she saw Aunt Katharine before she was
ill she spoke of soon going to be with all the rest, and said, 'Though
your Uncle Henry, dear,'--and stopped and smiled sadly; 'you'll think me
a very foolish old woman, but I never quite gave up thinking he might
come home.'"

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