THE VILLAGE GIRL. 171 



teach her needle-work, and it was surprising to see how soon 

 Kate caught all the necessary knowledge of that which had 

 once seemed so mysterious to her. Perhaps the wearisome 

 monotony of her present existence tended to give a new charm 

 to the occupation, but, certain it is, that the poor child acquired 

 in a month what had been to her five cousins the labor of a 

 life, and found in the quiet toils of the needle a resource for 

 many a heavy hour. 



But vain were all her aunt's endeavors to bend her pliant 

 mind into the constrained attitudes of fashion and frivolity. 

 Kate would sing her plaintive songs in the solitude of her 

 chamber, but she would not sit for six hours a day perked up 

 before the grand piano in the drawing-room. She had a fairy- 

 like step, and the most perfect grace was evident in every free 

 motion of her delicate form ; but she would not learn contor- 

 tion from a French dancing-master, nor would she adopt the 

 straitened garb of fashion. Then too she was continually 

 offending against propriety. She had been known to laugh 

 outright at the platitudes of one of the richest young men in 

 society, — had yawned almost in the face of a prosy old gentle- 

 man when he talked to her of his lonely widowhood, — nay, she 

 had even ventured, upon more than one occasion, to blurt out 

 her own crude opinions upon some mooted point of etiquette, 

 in such a manner as to disconcert, most effectually, the 

 upholders of fashion's despotism. 



Poor Kate ! she was like a forest-bird, suddenly caught and 

 caged. Her cousin Harry looked calmly on, never interfering 



