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Updated: May 5, 2025
"You have recovered your good looks, after that fit of crying," Mrs. Presty admitted, "but not your good spirits. What is worrying you now?" "I can't help thinking of poor Kitty." "My dear, the child wants nobody's pity. She's blowing away all her troubles by a ride in the fresh air, on the favorite donkey that she feeds every morning.
This woman went to church every Sunday, and kept a New Testament, bound in excellent taste, on her toilet-table! The occasion suggested reflection on the system which produces average Christians at the present time. Nothing more was said by Mrs. Presty; Mrs. Linley remained absorbed in her own bitter thoughts.
Which shall I open for you first?" "Randal's letter, if you please." Mrs. Presty handed it across the table. "Any news is a relief from the dullness of this place," she said. "If there are no secrets, Catherine, read it out." There were no secrets on the first page. Randal announced his arrival in London from the Continent, and his intention of staying there for a while.
Presty by one of his familiar remarks on the inconsistencies in her character. "You disagreeable old woman," he whispered, as she passed him, "you have got a heart, after all." Left alone, he was never for one moment in repose, while the slow minutes followed each other in the silent house. He walked about the room, he listened at the door, he arranged and disarranged the furniture.
He innocently checked that impulse by putting a question. "Had you any particular reason," he asked, "for guessing that I was a single man?" Mrs. Presty modestly acknowledged that she had only her own experience to help her. "You wouldn't be quite so fond of other people's children," she said, "if you were a married man. Ah, your time will come yet I mean your wife will come."
Since the day when her grandmother had said the fatal words which checked all further allusion to her father, the child had shown a disposition to complain, if she was not constantly amused. She complained of Mrs. Presty now. "I think grandmamma might have taken me to the Crystal Palace," she said.
Catherine knew nothing of the Captain's movements. "Like you," she told her mother, "I have something to say to him, and I don't know where he is." Mrs. Presty still kept her eyes fixed on her daughter. Nobody, observing Catherine's face, and judging also by the tone of her voice, would have supposed that she was alluding to the man whose irresistible attractions had won her.
Presty continued, with her sternest emphasis; "I see what you have done, in your face. You have refused Bennydeck." "God forgive me, I have been wicked enough to accept him!" Hearing this, some mothers might have made apologies; and other mothers might have asked what that penitential reply could possibly mean. Mrs. Presty was no matron of the ordinary type.
"Why?" They had reached the sitting-room door by this time. Kitty opened it without ceremony and looked in. The room was empty. Having confided her granddaughter to the nursemaid's care, Mrs. Presty knocked at Catherine's bedroom door. "May I come in?" "Come in directly! Where is Kitty?" "Susan is putting her to bed." "Stop it! Kitty mustn't go to bed. No questions.
"Only let me keep Kitty," Mrs. Linley declared, "and I'll do whatever you think right." "Stick to that, dear madam, when you have heard what I have to tell you and I shall not have taken my journey in vain. In the first place, may I look at the letter which I had the honor of forwarding some days since?" Mrs. Presty gave him Herbert Linley's letter.
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