been at ease on that subject, if she had known how to appreciate
Randal's character and Randal's motives. The same keen sense of
the family disgrace, which had led him to conceal from Captain
Bennydeck his brother's illicit relations with Sydney
Westerfield, had compelled him to keep secret his former
association, as brother-in-law, with the divorced wife. Her
change of name had hitherto protected her from discovery by the
Captain, and would in all probability continue to protect her in
the future. The good Bennydeck had been enjoying himself at sea
when the Divorce was granted, and when the newspapers reported
the proceedings. He rarely went to his club, and he never
associated with persons of either sex to whom gossip and scandal
are as the breath of their lives. Ignorant of these
circumstances, and remembering 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