Lady Frances shook her head gravely.

"Methinks the child has something on her mind, and her sisters
think so likewise, but what it is we none of us can guess. She
keeps her secret well."

"It is not like Kate to have a secret; it is still less like her to
hide it."

"That is what I feel. I have looked day by day and hour by hour for
her to come to me or to thee to tell what is in her mind. But the
weeks have sped by and her lips are still sealed, and, as thou
sayest, she is losing her gay spirits, or else her gaiety is over
wild, but doth not ring true; and there is a look in her eyes that
never used to be there, and which I like not."

"I know the look well--one of wistful, unsatisfied longing. It goes
to my heart to see it there. And hast thou noted that the bloom is
paling in her cheeks, and that she will sit at home long hours,
dreaming in the window seat or beside the hearth, when of old she
was for ever scouring the woods, and coming home laden with flowers
or ferns or berries? I like it not, nor do I understand it. And
thou sayest her sisters know not the cause? I thought that young
maidens always talked together of their secrets."

"Kate doth not. I have talked with Cecilia anent the matter, and
she knows not the cause. Bess has opined that this change first
appeared when it was decided that we went not to London this year,
as we had talked of doing earlier in the summer. Bess says she
noted then how disappointed Kate appeared; and she is of opinion