Kate Danton | Page 2

fire, stood looking with grave eyes into the glowing coals.
"So soon," she thought; "so soon; everything to be changed. What is Captain Danton's eldest daughter like, I wonder? What is the Captain like himself, and who can this invalid, Mr. Richards, be? I don't like change."
Babette came in with the coal, and Miss Grace roused herself from her reverie.
"Babette, tell Ledru to have dinner at seven. I think your master and his daughter will be here to-night."
"Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle! The young lady from England?"
"Yes; and see that there are fires in all the rooms upstairs."
"Yes, Miss Grace."
"Is Miss Eeny still in the parlour?"
"Yes, Miss Grace."
Miss Grace walked out of the dining-room, along a carved and pictured corridor, up a broad flight of shining oaken stairs, and tapped at the first door.
"Come in, Grace," called a pleasant voice, and Grace went in.
It was a much more elegant apartment than the dining-room, with flowers, and books, and birds, and pictures, and an open piano with music scattered about.
Half buried in a great carved and gilded chair, lay the only occupant of the room--a youthful angel of fifteen, fragile in form, fair and delicate of face, with light hair and blue eyes. A novel lying open in her lap showed what her occupation had been.
"I thought you were practising your music, Eeny," said Grace.
"So I was, until I got tired. But what's that you've got? A letter?"
Grace put it in her hand.
"From papa!" cried the girl, vividly interested at once. "Oh, Grace! Kate has come!"
"Yes."
The young lady laid down the letter and looked at her.
"How oddly you said that! Are you sorry?"
"Sorry! Oh, no."
"You looked as if you were. How strange it seems to think that this sister of mine, of whom I have heard so much and have never seen, should be coming here for good! And papa--he is almost a stranger, too, Grace. I suppose everything will be very different now."
"Very, very different," Grace said, with her quiet eyes fixed on the fire. "The old life will soon be a thing of the past. And we have been very happy here; have we not, Eeny?"
"Very happy," answered Eeny; "and will be still, I hope. Papa and Kate, and Mr. Richards--I wonder who Mr. Richards is?--shall not make us miserable."
"I suppose, Eeny," said Grace, "I shall be quite forgotten when this handsome Sister Kate comes. She ought to be very handsome."
She looked up at an oval picture about the marble mantel, in a rich frame--the photograph of a lovely girl about Eeny's age. The bright young face looked at you with a radiant smile, the exuberant golden hair fell in sunlight ripples over the plump white shoulders, and the blue eyes and rosebud lips smiled on you together. A lovely face, full of the serene promise of yet greater loveliness to come. Eeny's eyes followed those of Grace.
"You know better than that, Cousin Grace. Miss Kate Danton may be an angel incarnate, but she can never drive you quite out of my heart. Grace, how old is Kate?"
"Twenty years old."
"And Harry was three years older?"
"Yes."
"Grace, I wonder who Mr. Richards is?"
"So do I."
"Did Ogden say nothing about him?"
"Not a word."
"Will you write to Rose?"
"I shall not have time. I wish you would write, Eeny. That is what I came here to ask you to do."
"Certainly, with pleasure," said Eeny. "Rose will wait for no second invitation when she hears who have come. Will they arrive this evening?"
"Probably. They may come at any moment. And here I am lingering. Write the note at once, Eeny, and send Sam back to the village with it."
She left the parlour and went down stairs, looking into the dining-room as she passed. Babette was setting the table already, and silver and cut-glass sparkled in the light of the ruby flame. Grace went on, up another staircase, hurrying from room to room, seeing that all things were in perfect order. Fires burned in each apartment, lamps stood on the tables ready to be lit, for neither furnace nor gas was to be found here. The west suite of rooms spoken of in the letter were the last visited. A long corridor, lit by an oriel window, through which the rainy twilight stole eerily enough, led to a baize door. The baize door opened into a shorter corridor, terminated by a second door, the upper half of glass. This was the door of a study, simply furnished, the walls lined with book-shelves, surmounted by busts. Adjoining was a bathroom, adjoining that a bedroom. Fires burned in all, and the curtained windows commanded a wide western prospect of flower-garden, waving trees, spreading fields, and the great St. Lawrence melting into the low western sky.
"Mr. Richards ought to be very comfortable here," thought Grace. "It is rather strange Ogden did not