She had, it is true, kept up her intimacy with her Uncle George--hardly a week passed that she was not a visitor at his house or he at hers--but they had long since refrained from discussing Harry.

Not because he did not want to talk about him, but because she would not let him--Of course not! To Richard Horn, however, strange to say, she often turned--not so much for confidences as for a broader understanding of life.

The thoughtful inventor was not so hedged about by social restrictions, and would break out in spontaneous admiration of Harry, saying with a decisive nod of his head, "A fine, splendid young fellow, my dear Kate; I recognized it first at St.George's dinner to Mr.Poe, and if I may say so, a much-abused young man whose only sin is that he, like many another about us, has been born under a waning star in a sky full of murky clouds; one that the fresh breeze of a new civilization will some day clear away"-- a deduction which Kate could not quite grasp, but which comforted her greatly.
It delighted her, too, to hear him talk of the notable occurrences taking place about them.

"You are wonderfully intelligent, my dear," he had said to her on one occasion, "and should miss nothing of the developments that are going on about us;" and in proof of it had the very next day taken her to an exhibition of Mr.Morse's new telegraph, given at the Institute, at which two operators, each with an instrument, the men in sight of each other, but too far apart to be in collusion, were sending and answering the messages through wires stretched around the hall.

She, at Richard's suggestion, had written a message herself, which she handed to the nearest operator who had ticked it to his fellow, and who at once read it to the audience.