Capricious as the child has often shown herself, it is hard to believe that she is pining already for what she left with so glad a heart.

It passes my understanding; I know not what to think." Lady Frances raised her eyes for a moment to her husband's face, and then asked quietly: "Hast thou ever thought whether some secret love may be the cause of all ?" The knight started and looked full at his wife.
"I have indeed thought some such thing, but I can scarce believe that such is the case with our Kate." "Yet it is often so when maidens change and grow pale and dreamy, and sit brooding and thinking when erst they laughed and played.
Kate is double the woman she was six months gone by.

She will sit patiently at her needle now, when once she would throw it aside after one short hour; and she will seek to learn all manner of things in the still room and pantry that she made light of a short while back, as matters of no interest or concern to her.

She would make an excellent housewife if she had the mind, as I have always seen; and now she does appear to have the mind, save when her fits of gloom and sadness be upon her, and everything becomes a burden." Sir Richard looked aroused and interested.

A smile stole over his face.
"Our saucy Kate in love, and that secretly! Marry, that is something strange; and yet I am not sorry at the thought, for I feared her fancy was something too much taken by her cousin Culverhouse; and since his father must look for a large dower for his son's bride, our Kate could never have been acceptable to him.
Nor do I like the marriage of cousins so close akin, albeit in these times men are saying that there be no ill in such unions." Lady Frances shook her head gravely.
"I would sooner see daughter of mine wedded in a lowlier sphere.