"May I venture to ask where you have been?" she demanded.
"I have been to take a walk," said Catherine.
"I thought you had gone to church."
"I did go to church; but the service was shorter than usual. And pray where did you walk?"
"I don't know!" said Catherine.
"Your ignorance is most extraordinary! Dear Catherine, you can trust me."
"What am I to trust you with?"
""With your secret—your sorrow."
"I have no sorrow!" said Catherine fiercely.
"My poor child," Mrs. Penniman insisted, "you can't deceive me. I know everything. I have been requested to—a—to converse with you."
"I don't want to converse!"
"It will relieve you. Don't you know Shakespeare's lines?—'the grief that does not speak!' My dear girl, it is better as it is."
"What is better?" Catherine asked.
She was really too perverse. A certain amount of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady whose lover had thrown her over; but not such an
