Sir Richard smiled meaningly.

"Nor had I until of late; but I begin to think that is his object.
He pays more heed to the girls than he did when first he came to
visit us, and he has dropped a word here and a hint there, all
pointing in one direction. And dost thou not note that our Kate is
often brightest and best when he is by? I had never thought before
that her girlish fancy might have been caught by his gray hair and
soldier-like air; yet many stranger things have happened. Wife,
dost thou think it can be?"

"I would it were; it would be well for all. I will watch and see,
and do thou likewise. I had not thought the child's fancy thus
taken; but if it were so, I should rejoice. He would be a good
husband and a kind one, and our headstrong second daughter will
need control as well as love in the battle of life."

So the parents watched with anxious eyes, eager to see some
indication which should encourage them in this newly-formulated
hope. When once the idea had been started, it seemed to both as if
nothing could be better than a marriage between their high-spirited
but affectionate and warm-hearted daughter and this knight of forty
summers, who had won for himself wealth and fame, and a soldier's
reputation for unblemished honour and courage in many foreign
lands. If not exactly the man to produce an immediate impression on
the heart of a young girl, he might well win his way to favour in
time; and certainly it did seem as though Kate took pleasure in
listening to his stories of flood and field, whilst her bright eyes
and merry saucy ways (for she was still her old bright self at