them was seized by a shy fit, and stood looking and feeling like a
goose, drawing great C's with the point of her parasol in the sand;
Josephine looking on, and thinking how "bete" English children were.
Mrs. Wardour was not much less shy; but she knew she must make a
beginning, and so spoke in the middle of Kate's second C: and there
was a shaking of hands, and walking together.

They did not get on very well: nobody talked but Mrs. Wardour, and
she asked little frightened questions about the Oldburgh party, as
she called them, which Kate answered as shortly and shyly--the more
so from the uncomfortable recollection that her aunt had told her
that this was the very way to seem proud and unkind; but what could
she do? She felt as if she were frozen up stiff, and could neither
move nor look up like herself. At last Mrs. Wardour said that Alice
would be tired, and must go in; and then Kate managed to blurt out a
request that Sylvia might stay with her. Poor Sylvia looked a good
deal scared, and as if she longed to follow her mamma and sister; but
the door was shut upon her, and she was left alone with those two
strange people--the Countess and the Frenchwoman!

However, Kate recovered the use of her limbs and tongue in a moment,
and instantly took her prisoner's hand, and ran off with her to the
corner where the scenery of Loch Katrine had so often been begun, and
began with great animation to explain. This--a hole that looked as
if an old hen had been grubbing in it--was Loch Katrine.

"Loch Katharine--that's yours! And which is to be Loch Sylvia?" said
the child, recovering, as she began to feel by touch, motion, and
voice, that she had only to do with a little girl after all.