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The Two Sides of the Shield

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #6007 · 573,040 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Two Sides of the Shield

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6007]
                Most recently updated: October 13, 2016

Language: English

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Produced by Hanh Vu






THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD

By Charlotte M. Yonge





PREFACE



It is sometimes treated as an impertinence to revive the personages
of one story in another, even though it is after the example of
Shakespeare, who revived Falstaff, after his death, at the behest of
Queen Elizabeth. This precedent is, however, a true impertinence in
calling on the very great to justify the very small!

Yet many a letter in youthful handwriting has begged for further
information on the fate of the beings that had become favourites of the
school-room; and this has induced me to believe that the following out
of my own notions as to the careers of former heroes and heroines
might not be unwelcome; while I have tried to make the story stand
independently for new readers, unacquainted with the tale in which Lady
Merrifield and her brothers and sisters first appeared.

‘Scenes and Characters’ was, however, published so long ago, that the
young readers of this generation certainly will only know it if it has
had the good fortune to have been preserved by their mothers. It
was only my second book, and in looking back at it so as to preserve
consistency, I have been astonished at its crudeness.

It will explain a few illusions to state that it is the story of the
motherless family of Mohuns of Beechcroft, with a kindly deaf father at
the head, Mr. Mohun, whose pet name was the Baron of Beechcroft, owing
to a romantic notion of his daughters made fun of by his sons. The
eldest sister, a stiff, sensible, dry woman, had just married and gone
to India, leaving her post to the next in age, Emily, who was much too
indolent for the charge. Lilies, the third in age, with her head full
of the kind of high romance and sentiment more prevalent thirty or forty
years ago than now, imagined that whereas the household had formerly
been ruled by duty, it now might be so by love. Of course, confusion
dire was the consequence, chiefly with the younger boys, the scientific,
cross-grained Maurice, and the high-spirited, turbulent Reginald, all
the mischief being fomented by Jane’s pertness and curiosity, and only
mitigated by the honest simplicity and dutifulness of eight years old
Phyllis. The remedy was found at last in the marriage of the eldest
son William with Alethea Weston, already Lilias’s favourite friend and
model.

That in a youthful composition there should be a cavalier ancestry, a
family much given to dying of consumption, and a young marquess cousin
is, perhaps, inevitable. Lord Rotherwood was Mr. Mohun’s ward, and
having a dull home of his own, found his chief happiness as well as all
the best influences of his life, in the merry, highly-principled, though
easy-going life at his uncle’s, whom he revered like a father, while
his eager, somewhat shatter-brained nature often made him a butt to his
cousins. All this may account for the tone of camaraderie with which the
scattered members of the family meet again, especially around Lilias,
who had, with her cleverness and enthusiasm, always been the leading
member of the group.

It should, perhaps, also be mentioned that Lord Rotherwood’s greatest
friend was also Lilias’s favourite brother, Claude, who had become a
clergyman and died early. Aunt Adeline had been the spoilt child and
beauty of the family, the youngest of all.

C. M. YONGE.

March 8th, 1885.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME? CHAPTER II. THE MERRIFIELDS CHAPTER
III. GOOD BYE CHAPTER IV. TURNED IN AMONG THEM CHAPTER V. THE FIRST WALK
CHAPTER VI. PERSECUTION CHAPTER VII. G.F.S. CHAPTER VIII. MY PERSECUTED
UNCLE CHAPTER IX. LETTERS CHAPTER X. THE EVENING STAR CHAPTER XI. SECRET
EXPEDITIONS CHAPTER XII. A HUNT CHAPTER XIII. AN EGYPTIAN SPHINX CHAPTER
XIV. A CYPHER AND A TY CHAPTER XV. THE BUTTERFLY’S BALL CHAPTER XVI. THE
INCONSTANCY OF CONSTANCE CHAPTER XVII. THE STONE MELTING CHAPTER XVIII.
MYSIE AND DOLORES CHAPTER XIX. A SADDER AND A WISER AUTHORESS CHAPTER
XX. CONFESSIONS OF A COUNTRY MOUSE CHAPTER XXI. IN COURT AND OUT CHAPTER
XXII. NAY





THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD





CHAPTER I. -- WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?



A London dining-room was lighted with gas, which showed a table of small
dimensions, with a vase of somewhat dirty and dilapidated grasses in the
centre, and at one end a soup tureen, from which a gentleman had helped
himself and a young girl of about thirteen, without much apparent
consciousness of what he was about, being absorbed in a pile of papers,
pamphlets, and letters, while she on her side kept a book pinned open by
a gravy spoon. The elderly maid-servant, who set the dishes before them,
handed the vegetables and changed the plates, really came as near to
feeding the pair as was possible with people above three years old.

The one was a dark, thin man, with a good deal of white in his thick
beard and scanty hair, the absence of which made the breadth of his
forehead the more remarkable. The girl would have shown an equally
remarkable brow, but that her dark hair was cut square over it, so as
to take off from its height, and give a heavy over-hanging look to the
upper part of the face, which below was tin and sallow, well-featured,
but with a want of glow and colour. The thick masses of dark hair were
plaited into a very long thick tail behind, hanging down over a black
evening frock, whose white trimmings were, like everything else about
the place, rather dingy. She was far less absorbed than her father, and
raised a quick, wistful brown eye whenever he made the least sound, or
shuffled his papers. Indeed, it seemed that she was reading in order to
distract her anxiety rather than for the sake of occupation.

It was not till after the last pieces of cheese had been offered and
refused, and the maid had retired, leaving some dull crackers and
veteran biscuits, with two decanters and a claret-jug, that he spoke.

‘Dolores!’

‘Yes, father.’

But he only cleared his throat, and looked at his letter again, while
she fixed her eager eyes upon him so earnestly that he let his fall
again, and looked once more over his letters before he spoke again.

‘Dolores,’ and the tone was dry, as if all feeling were driven from it.

‘Yes, father.’

‘You know that I have accepted this appointment?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘And that I shall be absent three years at the least?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then comes the question, how you are to be disposed of in the
meantime?’

‘Could not I go with you?’ she said, under her breath.

‘No, my dear.’ And somehow the tone had more tenderness in it, though it
was so explicit. ‘I shall have no fixed residence, no one with whom
to leave you; and the climate is not fit for you. Your Aunt Lilias has
kindly offered to take charge of you.’

‘Oh, father!’

‘Well?’

‘If you would only let me stay here with Caroline and Fraulein. I like
it so much better.’

‘That cannot be, Dolly. I have this morning promised to let the house as
it is to Mr. Smithson.’

‘And Caroline?’

‘If Caroline takes my advice, she will remain here as his housekeeper,
and I think she will. Well, what is it? You do not mean that you would
prefer going to your Aunts Jane and Ada?’

‘Oh no, no; only if I might go to school.’

‘This is nonsense, Dolores. It will be much better for you on all
accounts to be with your aunt at Silverfold. I have no fear that she and
her girls will not do their best to make you happy and good, and to give
you what you have sadly wanted, my poor child. I have always wished you
could have seen more of her.’

There could be no doubt from the tone, in the mind of any one who knew
Mr. Maurine Mohun, that the decision was final; but perhaps Dolores
would have asked more if the door-bell had not rung at the moment and
Mr. Smithson had not been announced. Fate was closing in on her. She
retired into her book, and remained as long as she possibly could, for
the sake of seeing her father and hearing his voice; but after a time
she was desired to call Caroline, and to go to bed herself, for it was a
good deal past nine o’clock.

She had been aware, she could hardly tell how, that her father had been
offered a government appointment connected with the Fiji Islands, and
then that, glad to escape from the dreariness which had settled down on
the house since his wife’s death, about eighteen months previously, he
had accepted it, and she had speculated much on her probable fate; but
had never before been officially informed of his designs for himself or
for her.

He was a barrister, who spent all his leisure time on scientific
studies, and his wife had been equally devoted to the same pursuits.
Dolores had been her constant companion; but after the mother’s death,
from an accident on a glacier, a strange barrier of throwing himself
into the ways of a girl past the charms of infancy. It was as if they
had lost their interpreter.

The German governess, chosen by Mrs. Mohun, was very German indeed,
and greatly occupied in her own studies. When she found that the
armes-liebes Madchen shrank from being wept over and caressed on the
mournful return, she decided that the English had no feeling, and
acquiesced in the routine of lessons and expeditions to classes. She was
never unkind, but she did not try to be a companion; and old Caroline
was excellent in the attention she paid to the comforts of her master
and his daughter, but had no love of children, and would not have
encouraged familiarities, even if Dolores had not been too entirely a
drawing-room child to offer them.

The morning came, and everything went on as usual; Dolores poured
out the coffee, Mr. Mohun read his Times, Fraulein ate as usual, but
afterwards he asked for a few minutes’ conversation with Fraulein. All
that Dolores heard of the result of it was ‘So,’ and then lessons went
on until twelve o’clock, when it was the custom that the girl should
have an hour’s recreation, which was, in any tolerable weather, spent
in the gardens of the far west Crescent, where she lived. There she was
nearly certain of meeting her one great friend, Maude Sefton, who was
always sent out for her airing at the same time.

They spied each other issuing from their doors, met, linked their arms,
and entered together. Maude was a tall, rosy girl, with a great yellow
bush down her back, half a year older than Dolores, and a great deal
bigger.

‘My dearest Doll!’

‘Oh yes, it is come.’

‘Then he is really going? I heard the pater and mater talking about it
yesterday, and they said it would be an excellent thing for him.’

‘Oh, Maude! Then they did not say anything about what we hoped?’

‘What, the mater’s offering for you to come and live with us, darling?
Oh no; and I’s afraid it is of no use to ask her, for she said of
herself, that she knew Mr. Mohun had sisters, and--’

‘And what? Tell me, Maude. You must!’

‘Well, then, you know you made me, and I think it is a shame. She
said she was glad she wasn’t one of them, for you were such a peculiar
child.’

‘Dear me, Maude, you needn’t mind telling me that! I’m sure I don’t want
to be like everybody else.’

‘And are you going to one of your aunts?’

‘Yes, to Aunt Lilias. Oh, Maude, he would not hear a word against it,
and I know it will be so horrid! Aunts are always nasty!’

‘Kate is very fond of her aunt,’ said Maude, who did not happen to have
any personal experiences to oppose to this sweeping assertion.

‘Oh, I don’t mean proper aunts, but aunts that have orphans left to
them.’

‘But you are not an orphan, darling.’

‘I dare say I shall be. ‘Tis a horrible climate, and there are no end
of cannibals there, so that he would not take me out for anything,--and
sharks, and volcanoes, and hurricanes.’

‘I don’t think they eat people there now.’

‘It’s bad enough if they don’t! And you know those aunts begin pretty
well, while they are in fear of the father, but then they get worse.’

‘There was Ada Morton,’ said Maude, in a tone of conviction, ‘and Anna
Ross.’

‘Oh yes, and another book, ‘Rose Turquand.’ It was a grown-up book, that
I read once--long ago,’ said Dolores, who had in her mother’s time been
allowed a pretty free range of ‘book-box.’

“And there’s ‘Under the Shield,’ but that was a boy.”

‘There are lots and lots,’ said Dolores. ‘They are ever so much worse
than the stepmothers! Not that there is any fear of that!’ she added
quickly.

‘But isn’t this Aunt Lilias nice? It’s a pretty name. Which is she? You
have one aunt a Lady Something, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, it is this one, Lady Merrifield. Her husband is a general, Sir
Jasper Merrifield, and he is gone out to command in some place in India;
but she cannot stand the climate, and is living at home at a place
called Silverfold, with a whole lot of children. I think two are gone
out with their father, but there are a great many more.’

‘Don’t you know them at all?’

‘No, and don’t want to! I think my aunts were unkind to mother!’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Maude.

‘I am sure of it. They were horrid, stuck-up, fine ladies, and looked
down on her, though she was ever so much nicer, and cleverer, and more
intellectual than they; and she looked down on them.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Maude, to whom it was as good as a story.

‘Yes, indeed. She was civil, of course, because they were father’s
sisters, but I know she couldn’t bear them. If any of them came to
London, there was a calling, but all very stupid, and a dining at
Lord Rotherwood’s; but she never would, except once, when I can hardly
remember, go to stay at their slow places in the country. I’ve heard
father try to persuade her when they didn’t think I understood. You know
we always went abroad, or to the sea or something, except last year,
when we were at Beechcroft. That wasn’t so bad, for there were lots of
books, and Uncle Reginald was there, and he is jolly.’

‘Can’t you get Mr. Mohun to send you there?’

‘No, I don’t think they would have me, for every body there is grown
up, and father seems to have a wish for me to be with this Aunt Lilias,
because she has a schoolroom.’

‘I wonder he should wish it, if she was unkind to Mrs. Mohun.’

‘Well, she was out of the way most of the time. They have lived at Malta
and Gibraltar, and Belfast, and all sorts of places, so they will
all have regular garrison frivolous manner, and think of nothing but
officers and balls. I know she was a beauty, and wants to be one still.’

‘Maude, whose father was a professor, looked quite appalled and said--

‘You will be the one to infuse better things.’ She felt quite proud of
the word.

‘Perhaps,’ returned Dolores; ‘they always do that in time, but not till
they’ve been awfully bullied. All the cousins are jealous, and the aunt
spites them because they are nicer and prettier than her own.’

‘Yes,’ said Maude, ‘but then there’s always some tremendously nice
boy-cousin, or uncle, or something, that makes up for it all. Will Sir
Jasper Merrifield’s eldest son be a Sir?’

‘Oh no; he’s not a baronet, but a G.C.B., Knight Grand Cross of the
Bath, that is. Besides, I don’t care for love, and titles, and all that
nonsense, though father is first cousin to Lord Rotherwood.’

‘And you never saw any of them?’

‘Yes, Aunt Lilias was at the Charing Cross Hotel with Uncle Jasper and
the two eldest daughters, Alethea and Phyllis, and some more of them,
just before they sailed; and father took me there on Sunday to luncheon;
but there were so many people, and such a talk, and such a bustle, that
I hardly knew which was which. Aunt Jane and Aunt Ada were a talking
that it made my head turn round; but I saw how affected Aunt Lilias is,
and I knew that whenever they looked at me they said ‘poor child,’ and
I always hate any one who does that! All I was afraid of then was that
father would let Aunt Jane and Aunt Ada come and live with us; but this
is ever so much worse.’

‘You have such a lot of aunts and uncles!’ said Maude, ‘and I have not
got anything but one old uncle.’

‘Uncles are all very well,’ said Dolores, said Maude. ‘There are the two
Miss Mohuns--’

‘Oh, that’s beginning at the wrong end. Aunt Ada is the youngest of them
all, and she thinks she is a young lady still, and wears little curls
on her forehead, and a tennis pinafore, and makes her waist just like a
wasp. She and Aunt Jane live together at Rockquay, because she has bad
health--at least she has whenever she likes; and Aunt Jane does all
sorts of charities and worries, and sets everybody to rights,’
said Dolly, in a very grown-up voice, speaking partly from her own
observation, and partly repeating what she had caught from her elders.

‘Oh yes, I know her,’ said Maude. ‘She asked me questions about all I
did, and she did bother mamma so about a maid she recommended that we
are never going to take another from her.’

‘Aunt Phyllis comes between them, I believe; but she has married a
sailor captain and gone to settle in New Zealand, and I have not seen
her since I was a very little girl. Then there’s Aunt Emily, who is a
very great swell indeed. Her husband was a canon, Lord Henry Grey;
but he is dead, and she lives at Brighton, a regular fat, comfortable
down-pillow of a woman, who isn’t bad to lunch with, only she sends one
out to the Parade with her maid, as if one was a baby. Mother used to
laugh at her. And I think there was an older one who went to India and
died long ago.’

‘I have seen your two uncles. There’s Major Mohun. Oh! he is fun!’

‘Yes, dear old Uncle Regie! I wish he was not in Ireland. He will be so
sorry to miss seeing father off, but he can’t get leave. And there was a
clergyman who is dead, and father grieved for very much. I think he did
something to make them all nicer to mother, for it was just after that
we went to stay at Beechcroft with Uncle William. You know him, and how
mother used to call him the very model of a country squire; and I like
his wife, Aunt Alethea. Only it is very pokey and slow down there, and
they are always after flannel petticoats and soup kitchens, and all the
old fads that are exploded. I should get awfully tired of it before a
year was out, only I should not be teased with strange children, and
there would be no one to be jealous of me.’

‘Can’t you get your father to change and send you there?’

‘Not a chance. You see Aunt Lilias had offered, and they haven’t, and I
must go on with my education. I hope, though I shall have no advantages,
I shall still be able to go up for the Cambridge examination, if Aunt
Lilias has not prejudices, as I dare say she has, since of course none
of her own will be able to try.’

‘You’ll come up to us for the examination, Dolly dear, and we shall do
it together, and that will be nice!’

‘If they will let me; but I don’t expect to be allowed to do anything
that I wish. Only perhaps father may be come home by that time.’

‘Is it three years?’

‘Yes. It is a terrible time, isn’t it? However, when I’m seventeen
perhaps he will talk to me, and I can really keep house.’

‘And then you’ll come back here?’

‘Do you know, Maudie--listen--I’ve another uncle, belonging to mother.’

‘Oh, Dolly! I thought she had no one!’

‘He told me he was my Uncle Alfred once when he met me in the park with
Fraulein, and gave me a note for mother. He is called Mr. Flinders.’

‘But I thought your mother was daughter to Professor Hay?’

‘But this is a half-brother; my grandmother was married before. Uncle
Alfrey has an immense light beard, and I think he is very poor. He came
once or twice to see mother, and they always sent me out of the room;
but I am sure she gave him money--not father’s housekeeping money, but
what she got for herself by writing. Once I heard father go out of the
house, saying, ‘Well, it’s your own to do as you please with.’ And then
mother went to her room, and I know she cried. It was the only time that
ever mother cried!’ And as Maude listened, much impressed--‘Once when
she had got eleven pounds, and we were going to have bought father such
a binocular for a secret as a birthday present, Mr. Flinders came, and
she gave him ten of it, and we could only buy just a few slides for
father. And she told me she was grieved, but she could not help it, and
it would be time for me to understand when I was older.’

‘I don’t think this Uncle Alfrey can be nice,’ said Maude.

‘’Tis quite disgusting if he kisses me,’ said Dolly; ‘but you see he is
poor, and all the Mohuns are stuck up, except father, and they wanted
mother to despise him, and not help him. And you see, she stuck to him.
I don’t like him much; but you see nobody ever was like her! Oh, Maude,
if she wasn’t dead!’

And poor Dolores cried as she had not done even at the time of the
accident, or in the terrible week that followed, or at the desolate home
coming.




CHAPTER II. -- THE MERRIFIELDS.



The cool twilight of a long sunny summer’s day was freshening the
pleasant garden of a country house, and three people were walking slowly
along a garden path enjoying the contrast with the heat, glare, and
noise of the day. The central one was a tall, slender lady, with a light
shawl hung round her shoulders. On one side was a youth who had begun to
overtop her, on the other a girl of shorter and sturdier mould, who only
reached up to her shoulder.

‘So she is coming!’ the girl said.

‘Yes, Uncle Maurice has answered my letter very kindly.’

‘I should think he would be very much obliged,’ observed the boy.

‘Please, mamma, do tell us all about it,’ said the girl. ‘You know I
stopped directly when you made me a sign not to go on asking questions
before the little ones. And you said you should have to make us your
friends while papa and the grown-ups are away.’

‘Well, Gillian, I know you can be discreet when you are warned, and
perhaps it is best that you should know how things stand. Do you
remember anything about it, Hal?’

‘Only a general perception that there were tempests in the higher
regions, but I think that was more from hearing Alley and Phyl talk than
from my native sagacity.’

‘So I should suppose, since you were only six years old, at the utmost.’

‘But Uncle Maurice always was under a cloud, wasn’t he, especially at
Beechcroft, where I never saw him or his wife in the holidays except
once, when I believe she was not at all liked, and was thought to be
very proud, and stuck-up, and pretentious.’

‘But was she just nobody? not a lady?’ cried Gillian. ‘Aunt Emily always
called her, ‘“Poor thing.”’

‘Perhaps she did the same by Aunt Emily,’ returned Hal.

‘And I am sure I have heard Aunt Ada say that she wasn’t a lady; and
Aunt Jane that she had all sorts of discreditable connections.’

‘Come now, Gill, if you chatter so, how is mamma to get a word in
between?’

‘I’m afraid we have all been hard on her, poor thing!’

‘There now, mamma has done it, just like Aunt Emily!’

‘Anybody would be poor who got killed in a glacier!’

‘No, but one doesn’t say poor when people are--nice.’

‘When I said poor,’ now put in Lady Merrifield, ‘it was not so much that
I was thinking of her death as of her having come into a family where
nobody welcomed her, and I really do not suppose it was her fault.’

‘Moreover, she seemed to do very well without a welcome,’ added Hal.

‘Who is interrupting now?’ cried Gillian, ‘but was she a lady?’

‘I never saw her, you know,’ said the mother; ‘but from all I ever heard
of her, I should think she was, and cleverer and more highly educated
than any of us.’

‘Yes,’ said Hal, ‘that was the kind of pretension that exasperated them
all at Beechcroft, especially Uncle William.’

‘I wonder if Dolores will have it!’ said Gillian. ‘I suppose she will
know much more than we do.’

‘Probably, being the only child of such parents, and with every
advantage London can give. Maurice was always much the cleverest of us
all, and with a very strong mechanical and scientific turn, so that I
now think it might have been better to have let him follow his bent. But
when we were young there was a good deal of mistrust of anything outside
the beaten tracks of gentlemanlike professions, and my dear old father
did not like what he heard of the course of study for those lines.
Things were not as they are now. So Maurice went to Cambridge, and was
fifth wrangler of his year, and then had to go to the bar. It somehow
always gave him a thwarted, injured feeling of working against the
grain, and he cultivated all these scientific pursuits to the utmost,
getting more and more into opinions and society that distressed
grandpapa and Uncle William. So he fell in with Mr. Hay, a professor
at a German university. I can hear William’s tone of utter contempt and
disgust. I believe this poor man was exceedingly learned, and had made
some remarkable discoveries, but he was very poor, and lived in lodgings
at Bonn with his daughter in the small way people are content to do in
Germany. As to his opinions, we all took it for granted that he was a
freethinker; but I can’t tell how that might be. Maurice lodged in the
same house one year when he went to learn German and attend lectures,
and he went back again every long vacation. At last came your dear
grandfather’s death. Maurice hurried away from Beechcroft immediately
after the funeral, and the next thing that was heard of him was that
he had married Miss Hay. It was no wonder that your Uncle William was
bitterly hurt and offended at the apparent disrespect to our father, and
would make no move towards Maurice.’

‘It was when we were at the Cape, wasn’t it?’ asked Hal.

‘Yes, the year Gillian was born. Well, your dear Uncle Claude went to
see Maurice in London, and found there was much excuse. Maurice had
learnt that the old professor was dying, and his daughter had nothing,
and would have had to be a governess, so that Maurice had married her in
haste in order to be able to help them.’

‘Then it really was very kind and noble in him!’ exclaimed Gillian.

‘And I believe every one would have felt it so; but for his
unfortunately reserved way of concealing the extent of the acquaintance,
and showing that he would not be interfered with. Claude did his best to
close the breach, but there had been something to forgive on both sides,
and perhaps SHE was prouder than the Mohuns themselves. Oh! my dears,
I hope you will never have a family quarrel among you! It is so sad to
look back upon a change after the happy years when we were all together,
and were laughing and making fun of one another!’

‘But you were quite out of it, mamma.’

‘So I was in a way, but I knew nothing of the justification till too
late for any advances from us to take much effect. I am four years older
than Maurice, we had never been a pair, and had never corresponded.
And when I wrote to him and to his wife, I only received stiff, formal
answers. They were abroad when we were in London on coming home, and
they would not come to see us at Belfast, so that I could never make
acquaintance with her; but I believe she was an excellent wife, suiting
him admirably in every way, and I expect to find this little daughter of
theirs very well brought up, and much forwarder than honest old Mysie.’

‘Mysie is in perfect raptures at the notion of having a cousin here
exactly of her own age,’ said Gillian. ‘What she would wish is that the
two should be so much alike as to be taken for twins. I have been trying
to remember Dolores on that dreadful Sunday at the hotel, when Uncle
Maurice came to see us, just when papa was setting off for Bombay, but
it all seems confusion. I can think of nothing but a little black, shy
figure. I remember Phyllis telling me that she thought I ought to do
something to entertain her, but I could not think of a word to say to
her.’

‘For which perhaps she was thankful,’ said her brother.

‘I am not sure. You are all too apt, when you are shy, to console
yourself with fancying that you are doing as you would be done by. It
might have worried her then perhaps, but it would have made it easier
for her to begin among us now! I am very glad her father consents to my
having her! I do hope we may make her happy.’

‘Happy!’ said Gillian. ‘Anybody must be happy with such a number to play
with, and with you to mother her, mamma.’

‘I am afraid she will not feel me much like her own mother, poor child!
But it will not be for want of the will. When I look back now I feel
sorry for myself for the early loss of my mother, for though we were all
merry enough as children and young people, there always seems to have
been a lack of something fostering and repressing. There was a kind of
desolateness in our life, though we did not understand it at the time.
I am thankful you have not known it, my dears.’ There was a strange rush
of tears nearly choking her voice, and she shook them away with a sort
of laugh. ‘That I should cry for that at this time of day!’

Gillian raised her face for a kiss, and even Harry did the same. Their
hearts were very full, as the perception swept over them in one flash
what their lives would have been without mamma. It seemed like the solid
earth giving way under their feet!

‘I am very sorry for poor Dolores,’ said Gillian presently. ‘It seems as
if we could never be kind enough to her.’

‘Yes. Indeed I hope we may do something towards supplying her with a
real home, wandering sprites as we have been,’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘What a name it is! Dolores! It is as bad as Peter Grievous! How did she
get it?’ grumbled Harry.

‘That I cannot tell, but I think we must call her Dora or Dolly, as I
fancy your Aunt Jane told me she was called at home. I hope Wilfred
will not get hold of it and tease her about it. You must defend her from
that.’

‘If we can,’ said Gillian; ‘but Wilfred is rather an imp.’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘I found Primrose reduced to the verge of distraction
yesterday because ‘Willie would call her Leg of Mutton.’’

‘I hope you boxed his ears!’ cried Gillian.

‘I did give it to him well,’ said Hal, laughing.

‘Thank you,’ said his mother. ‘A big brother is more effective in such
cases than any one else can be. Wilfred is the only one of you all who
ever seemed to take pleasure in causing pain--and I hardly know how to
meet the propensity.’

‘He is the only one who is not quite certain to be nice with Dolores,’
said Gillian.

‘And I really don’t quite see how to manage,’ said the mother. ‘If we
show him our anxiety to shield her, it is very likely to direct his
attention that way.’

‘She must take her chance,’ said Hal, ‘and if she is any way rational,
she can soon put a stop to it.’

‘But, oh dear! I wish he could go to school,’ said Gillian.

‘So do I, my dear,’ returned her mother; ‘but you know the doctors say
we must not risk it for another year, and I can only hope that as he
grows stronger, he may become more manly. Meantime we must be patient
with him, and Hal can help more than any one else. There--what’s that
striking?’

‘Three quarters.’

‘Then we must make haste in, or we shall not have finished supper before
ten.’

Lilias Mohun had married a soldier, and after many wanderings through
military stations, the health and education of a large proportion of
her family had necessitated her remaining at home with them, while her
husband held a command in India, taking out with him the two grown-up
daughters and the second son, who was on his staff. She was established
in a large house not far from a country town, for the convenience of
daily governess, tutor, and masters. She herself had grown up on the
old system which made education depend more on the family than on the
governess, and she preferred honestly the company and training of her
children to going into society in her husband’s absence. Therefore
she arranged her habits with a view to being constantly with them, and
though exchanging calls, and occasionally accepting invitations in the
neighbourhood, it was an understood thing that she went out very little.
The chief exceptions were when her eldest son, Harry, was at home from
Oxford. He was devotedly fond of her, and all the more pleased and proud
to take her about with him because it had not always been possible that
his holidays in his school life should be spent at home, and thus the
privilege was doubly prized.

The two sisters above and one brother below him were in India with their
father, and Gillian was not yet out of the schoolroom, though this did
not cut her off from being her mother’s prime companion. Then followed a
schoolboy at Wellington, named Jasper, two more girls, a brace of boys,
and the five-year-old baby of the establishment--sufficient reasons
to detain Lady Merrifield in England after more than twenty years of
travels as a soldier’s wife, so that scarcely three of her children had
the same birthplace. She had been able to see very little of her English
relations, being much tied by the number of her children while all were
very young, and the expense of journeys; but she was now within easy
reach of her two unmarried sisters, and after the Cape, Gibraltar,
Malta, and Dublin, the homes of her eldest sister, and of her eldest
brother did not seem very far off.

Indeed Beechcroft, the home of her childhood, had always been the
headquarters of herself and her children on their rare visits to
England. Her elder boys had been sure of a welcome there in the
holidays, and loved it scarcely less than she did herself; and when
looking for her present abode, the whole family had stayed there for
three months. Her brother Maurice, however, she had scarcely seen, and
she had been much pained at being included in his persistent avoidance
of the whole family, who felt that he resented their displeasure at his
marriage even more since his wife’s death than he had done during her
lifetime, as if he felt doubly bound, for her sake, not to forgive and
forget. At least so said some of the family, while others hoped that
his distaste to all intercourse with them only arose from the apathy
succeeding a great blow.




CHAPTER III. -- GOOD-BYE



A passage was offered to Mr. Mohun in a Queen’s ship, and this hurried
the preparations so much that to Dolores it appeared that there was
nothing but bustle and confusion, from the day of her conversation with
Maude, until she found herself in the railway carriage returning from
Plymouth with her eldest uncle. Her father had intended to take her
himself to Silverfold; but detentions at the office in London, and then
a telegram from Plymouth, had disconcerted his plans, and when he found
that his eldest brother would come and meet him at the last, he was glad
to yield to his little daughter’s earnest desire to be with him as long
as possible.

Shy and reserved as both were, and almost incapable of finding
expression for their feelings, they still clung closely together, though
the only tears the girl was seen to shed came in church on the last
Sunday evening, blinding and choking, and she could barely restrain her
sobs. Her father would have taken her out, but she resisted, and leant
against him, while he put his arm round her. After this, whenever it was
possible, she crept up to him, and he held her close.

There had been no further discussion on her home. Lady Merrifield had
written kindly to her, as well as to her father, but that was small
consolation to one so well instructed by story books in the hypocrisy of
aunts until fathers were at a distance. And her father was so manifestly
gratified by the letter, that it would be of no use to say a word to him
now. Her fate was determined, and, as she heroically told Maude in their
last interview, she was determined to make the best of it. She would
endure the unjust aunt, and jealous, silly cousins, and be so clever,
and wise, and superior, that she would force them to admire and respect
her, and by-and-by follow her example, and be good and sensible, so that
when father came home, he would find them acknowledging that they owed
everything to her; she had saved two or three of their lives,
nursed half of them when the other half were helpless, fainting, and
hysterical, and, in short, been the Providence of the household. Then
father would look at her, and say, ‘My Mary again!’ and he would take
her home, and talk to her with the free confidence he had shown her
mother, and would be comforted.

This was the hope that had carried her through the last parting, when
she went on board with her uncle and saw her father’s cabin, and looked
with a dull kind of entertainment at all the curious arrangements of the
big ship. It seemed more like sight-seeing than good-bye, when at last
they were sent on shore, and hurried up to the station just in time for
the train.

Uncle William was a very unapproachable person. He did not profess to
understand little girls. He looked at Dolores rather anxiously, afraid,
perhaps, that she was crying, and put her into the carriage, then rushed
out and brought back a handful of newspapers, giving her the Graphic,
and hiding himself in the Times.

She felt too dull and stunned to read, or to look at the pictures,
though she held the paper in her hands, and she gazed out dreamily at
the Ton’s and rocks and woody ravines of Dartmoor as they flew past her,
the leaves and ferns all golden brown with autumn colouring. She had
had little sleep that night; her little legs had all the morning been
keeping up with the two men’s hasty steps, and though an excellent meal
had been set before her in the ship, she had not been able to swallow
much, and she was a good deal worn out. So when at last they reached
Exeter, and finding there would be two hours to wait, her uncle
asked whether she would come down into the town with him and see the
Cathedral, she much preferred to stay where she was. He put her under
the care of the woman in the waiting-room, who gave her some tea, took
off her hat, and made her lie down on a couch, where she slept quite
sound for more than an hour, until she was roused by some ladies coming
in with a crying baby.

It was, she thought, nearly time to go on, for the gas was being
lighted. She put on her hat, and went out to look for her uncle on
the platform, so as to get into a better light to see the face of her
mother’s little Swiss watch, which her father had just made over to her.
She had just made out that there was not more than a quarter of an hour
to spare, when she heard an exclamation.

‘By Jove! if that ain’t Mary’s little girl!’ and, looking up she saw Mr.
Flinders’ huge, bushy, light-coloured beard. ‘Is your father here?’ he
asked.

‘No; he sailed this afternoon.’

‘Always my luck! Ticket wasted! Sailed--really?’

‘Oh yes. We did not come back till the ship was out of harbour.’

He muttered some exclamation, and asked--

‘Whom are you with?’

‘Uncle William. Mr. Mohun--my eldest uncle. He will be back directly.’

Mr. Flinders whistled a note of discontent.

‘Going to rusticate with him, poor little mite?’ he asked.

‘No. I’m to live with my Aunt Lilias--Lady Merrifield.’

‘Where?’

‘At Silverfold Grange, near Silverfold.’

‘Well, you’ll get among the swells. They’ll make you cut all your
poor mother’s connections. So there’s an end of it. She was a good
creature--she was!’

‘I’ll never forget any one that belongs to her,’ said Dolores. ‘Oh,
there’s Uncle William!’ as on the top of the stairs she spied the
welcome sight of his grey locks and burly figure. Before he had
descended, her other uncle had vanished, and she fancied she had heard
something about, ‘Mum about our meeting. Ta ta!’

Uncle William’s eyes being less sharp than hers, he was on his way
to the waiting-room before she joined him, and as he had not seen her
encounter, she would not tell him. They were settled in the carriage
again, and she was tolerably refreshed. Mr. Mohun fell asleep, and she,
after reading by the lamp-light as long as she could find anything to
read, gazed at the odd reflections in the windows till she, too, nodded
and dozed, half waking at every station.

At last, she was aware of a stop in earnest, voices, and being called.
There was her uncle saying, ‘Well, Hal, here we are!’ and she was lifted
out and set on the platform, with gas all round. Her uncle was saying,
‘We didn’t get away in time for the express,’ and a young man was
answering, ‘We’d better put Dolly into the waggonette at once. Then I’ll
see to the luggage.’

Very like a parcel, so stiff were her legs, she was bundled into the
dark cavern of a closed waggonette, and, after a little lumbering, her
uncle and the young man got in after her, saying something about eleven
o’clock.

She was more awake now, and knew that they were driving through lighted
streets, and then, after an interval, turned into darkness, upon gravel,
and stopped at last before a door full of light, with figures standing
up dark in it. She heard a ‘Well, William!’ ‘Well Lily, here we are at
last!’ Then there were arms embracing her, and a kiss on each cheek, as
a soft voice said, ‘My poor little girl! They wanted to sit up for you,
but it was too late, and I dare say you had rather be quiet.’

She was led into a lamp-lit room, which dazzled her. It was spread with
food, but she was too much tired to eat, and her aunt saw how it was,
and telling Harry to take care of his uncle, she took the hand--though
it did not close on hers--and, climbing up what seemed to Dolores an
endless number of stairs, she said--

‘You are up high, my dear; but I thought you would like a room to
yourself.’

‘Poked away in an attic,’ was Dolores’s dreamy thought; while her aunt
added, to a tall, thin woman, who came out with a lamp in her hand--

‘She is so tired that she had better go to bed directly, Mrs. Halfpenny.
You will make her comfortable, and don’t let her be disturbed in the
morning till she has had her sleep out.’

Dolly found herself undressed, without many words, till it came
to--‘Your prayers, Miss Dora. I am sure you’ve need not to miss them.’

She did not like to be told, besides, poor child, prayers were not much
more than a form to her. She did not contest the point, but knelt down
and muttered something, then laid her weary head on the pillow, was
tucked up by Mrs. Halfpenny, and left in the dark. It was a dreary half
sleep into which she fell. The noise of the train seemed to be still in
her ears, and at the same time she was always being driven up--up--up
endless stairs, by tall, cruel aunts; or they were shutting her up to do
all their children’s work, and keeping away father’s letters from her.
Then she awoke and told herself it was a dream, but she missed the
noises of the street, and the patch of light on the wall from the gas
lamps, and recollected that father was gone, and she was really in the
power of one of these cruel aunts; and she felt like screaming, only
then she might have been heard; and a great horrid clock went on making
a noise like a church bell, and striking so many odd quarters that there
was no guessing when morning was coming. And after all, why should she
wish it to come? Oh, if she could but sleep the three years while father
was away!

At last, however, she fell into a really calm sleep, and when she awoke,
the room was full of light, but her watch had stopped; she had been too
much tired to remember to wind it; and she lay a little while hearing
sounds that made it clear that the world was astir, and she could see
that preparations had been made for her getting up.

‘They shan’t begin by scolding me for being late,’ she thought, and she
began her toilette.

Just as she came to her hair, the old nurse knocked and asked whether
she wanted help.

‘Thank you, I’ve been used to dress myself,’ said Dolores, rather
proudly.

‘I’ll help you now, missy, for prayers are over, and they are all gone
to breakfast, only my lady said you were not to be disturbed, and Miss
Mysie will be up presently again to bring you down.’

She spoke low, and in an accent that Dolores afterwards learnt was
Scotch; and she was a tall, thin, bony woman, with sandy hair, who
looked as if she had never been young. She brushed and plaited the dark
hair in a manner that seemed to the owner more wearisome and less tender
than Caroline’s fashion; and did not talk more than to inquire into the
fashion of wearing it, and to say that Miss Mohun’s boxes had been sent
from London, demanding the keys that they might be unpacked.

‘I can do that myself,’ said Dolores, who did not like any stranger to
meddle with her things.

‘Ye could tak them oot, nae doubt, but I must sort them. It’s my
lady’s orders,’ said Mrs. Halfpenny, with all the determination of the
sergeant, her husband, and Dolores, with a sense of despair, and a sort
of expectation that she should be deprived of all her treasures on one
plea or another, gave up the keys.

Mrs. Halfpenny then observed that the frock which had been worn for the
last two days on the railway, and evening and morning, needed a better
brushing and setting to rights than she had had time to give it. She had
better take out another. Which box were her frocks in?

Dolores expected her heartless relations to insist on her leaving off
her mourning, and she knew she ought to struggle and shed tears over it;
but, to tell the truth, she was a good deal tired of her hot and fusty
black; and when she had followed Mrs. Halfpenny into a passage where
the boxes stood uncorded; and the first dress that came to light was
a pretty fresh-looking holland that had been sent home just before the
accident, she exclaimed--

‘Oh, let me put that on.’

‘Bless me, miss, it has blue braid, and you in mourning for your poor
mamma!’

Dolores stood abashed, but a grey alpaca, which she had always much
disliked, came out next, and Mrs. Halfpenny decided that with her black
ribbons that would do, though it turned out to be rather shockingly
short, and to show a great display of black legs; but as the box
containing the clothes in present wear had not come to hand, this must
stand for the present--and besides, a voice was heard, saying, ‘Is Dora
ready?’ and a young person darted up, put her arms round her neck, and
kissed her before she knew what she was about. ‘Mamma said I should come
because I am just your age, thirteen and a half,’ she said. ‘I’m Mysie,
though my proper name is Maria Millicent.’

Dolores looked her over. She was a good deal taller than herself, and
had rich-looking shining brown hair, dark brown eyes full of merriment,
and a bright rosy colour, and she danced on her active feet as if
she were full of perpetual life. ‘All happy and not caring,’ thought
Dolores.

‘Now don’t fash Miss Mohun with your tricks. She has stood like a lamb,’
said Mrs. Halfpenny reprovingly. ‘There, we’ll not keep her to find an
apron.’

‘I don’t wear pinafores,’ said Mysie, ‘but I don’t mind pretty aprons
like this. ‘Why, my sisters had them for tennis, before they went out to
India. Come along, Dora,’ grasping her hand.

‘My name isn’t Dora,’ said the new-comer, as they went down the passage.

‘No,’ said Mysie, in a low voice; ‘but mamma told Gill--that’s Gillian,
and me, that we had better not tell anybody, because if the boys heard
they might tease you so about it; for Wilfred is a tease, and there’s
no stopping him when mamma isn’t there. So she said she would call
you Dora, or Dolly, whichever you liked, and you are not a bit like a
Dolly.’

‘They always called me Dolly,’ said Dolores; ‘and if I am not to have my
name, I like that best; but I had rather have my proper name.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Mysie; ‘it is more out of the way, only it is very
long.’

By this time they had descended a long narrow flight of uncarpeted
stairs, ‘the back ones,’ as Mysie explained, and had reached a slippery
oak hall with high-backed chairs, and all the odds and ends of a
family-garden hats, waterproofs, galoshes, bats, rackets, umbrellas,
etc., ranged round, and a great white cockatoo upon a stand, who
observed--‘Mysie, Cockie wants his breakfast,’ as they went by towards
the door, whence proceeded a hubbub of voices and a clatter of knives
and jingle of teaspoons and cups, a room that as Mysie threw open the
door seemed a blaze of sunshine, pouring in at the large window, and
reflected in the glass and silver. Yes, and in the bright eyes and
glossy hair of the party who sat round the breakfast-table, further
brightened by the fire, pleasant in the early autumn.

Eyes, as it seemed to Dolores, eyes without number were levelled on her,
as Mysie led her in, saying--

‘Here’s a place by mamma; she kept it for you, between her and Uncle
William.’

‘No, don’t all jump up at once and rush at her,’ said Lady Merrifield.
‘Give her a little time. Here, my dear;’ and she held out her hand and
drew in the stranger to her, kissing her kindly, and placing her in a
chair close to herself, as she presided over the teacups--not at the
end, but at the middle of the table--while all that could be desired to
eat and drink found its way at once to Dolores, who had arrived at being
hungry now, and was glad to have the employment for hands and eyes,
instead of feeling herself gazed at. She was not so much occupied,
however, as not to perceive that Uncle William’s voice had a free, merry
ring in it, such as she had never heard in his visits to her father, and
that there was a great deal of fun and laughter going on over the thin
sheets of an Indian letter, which Aunt Lily was reading aloud.

No one seemed to be attending to anything else, when Dolores ventured to
cast a glance around and endeavour to count heads as she sat between her
uncle and aunt. Two boys and a girl were opposite. Harry, who had come
to meet them last night, was at one end of the table, a tall girl,
but still a schoolroom girl, was at the other, and Mysie had been lost
sights of on her own side of the table; also there was a very tiny girl
on a high chair on the other side of her mamma. ‘Seven,’ thought Dolores
with sinking heart. ‘Eight oppressors!’

They were mostly brown-eyed, well-grown creatures. One boy, at the
further corner, had a cast in his eye, and was thin and wizen-looking,
and when he saw her eyes on him, he made up an ugly face, which he got
rid of like a flash of lightning before any one else could see it, but
her heart sank all the more for it. He must be Wilfred, the teaser.

Aunt Lilias was a tall, slender woman, dressed in some kind of soft
grey, with a little carnation colour at her throat, and a pretty lace
cap on her still rich, abundant, dark brown hair, where diligent search
could only detect a very few white threads. Her complexion was always of
a soft, paly, brunette tint, and though her cheeks showed signs that she
was not young, her dark, soft, long-lashed eyes and sweet-looking
lips made her face full of life and freshness; and the figure and long
slender hands had the kind of grace that some people call willowy, but
which is perhaps more like the general air of a young birch tree, or,
as Hal had once said, ‘Early pointed architecture reminded him of his
mother.’

The little one was getting restless, and two of the boys began filliping
crumbs at one another.

‘Wilfred! Fergus!’ said the mother quite low and gently; but they
stopped directly. ‘We will say grace,’ she said, lifting the little one
down. ‘Now, Primrose.’

Every one stood up, to Dolores’ surprise, a pair of little fat hands
were put together, a little clear voice said a few words of thanksgiving
perfectly pronounced.

‘You may go, if you like,’ she said. ‘Hal, take care of Prim.’

Up jumped the two boys and a sprite of a girl, who took the hand of
little Primrose, a beautiful little maiden with rich chestnut wavy
curls. They all paused at the door, the boys making a salute, the girls
a little curtsey. Primrose’s was as pretty a little ‘bob’ as ever was
seen.

‘I am glad you keep that custom up,’ said Mr. Mohun.

‘Jasper had been brought up to it, and wished it to be the habit among
us; and I find it a great protection against bouncing and rudeness.’

But Dolly’s blood boiled at such stupid, antiquated, military nonsense.
She would never give in to it, if they made her live on bread and water!

The uncle and aunt, who perhaps had lengthened out their breakfast from
politeness to her, had finished when she had, and the pony-chaise came
to the door, in which Hal was to drive Uncle William to the station.
Everybody flocked to the door to bid him good-bye, and then Aunt Lilias
stooped down to ask Dolores if she were quite rested and felt quite
well, Mysie standing anxiously by as if she felt her a great charge.

‘Quite well, quite rested, thank you,’ the girl answered in her stiff,
shy way.

‘There is half an hour to spare before Miss Vincent comes. The children
generally spend it in feeding the creatures. I am not going to give
a holiday, because I think people get more pleasantly acquainted over
something, than over nothing, to do, but you need not begin lessons
to-day if you had rather settle your thoughts and write your letters.’

‘I had rather begin at once,’ said Dolores, who thought she would now
establish her pre-eminence at the cost of any amount of jealousy.

‘Very well, then, when you hear the gong--’

‘Mamma,’ said Mysie solemnly, after long waiting, ‘she says she had
rather not be called out of her name.’

‘I thought you had been called Dolly, my dear.’

‘Yes, at home,’ with a strong emphasis.

‘Well, my dear, I dare say it may be better to keep to your proper name
at once. We won’t take liberties with it, till you feel as if you could
call this home,’ said Lady Merrifield, looking as if she would have
kissed her niece on the slightest encouragement, but no one ever looked
less kissable than Dolores Mohun at that moment. Was it not cruel and
hypocritical to talk of this tiresome multitude as ever making home?




CHAPTER IV. -- TURNED IN AMONG THEM



‘Do you like pets?’ asked Mysie eagerly, as her mother left the two
girls together.

‘I never had any,’ said Dolores.

‘Oh how dreadful! Why, old Cockie, and Aga and Begum, the two oldest
pussies, have been everywhere with us. And, besides, there’s Basto,
the big Pyrenean dog, and,--oh, here comes little Quiz, mamma’s little
Maltese--Quiz, Quiz.’

Dolores started, she did not like either dogs or cats; and the little
spun-glass looking dog smelt about her.

‘I must go and feed my guinea-pig,’ said Mysie; ‘won’t you come? Here
are some over shoes and Poncho.’

Dolores was afraid Poncho was another beast, but it turned out to be
a sort of cape, and she discovered that all the cloaks and most of the
sticks had names of their own. She was afraid to be left standing on the
steps alone lest any amount of animals or boys should fall on her there,
so she consented to accompany Mysie, who shuffled along in a pair of
overshoes vastly too big for her, since she had put her cousin into the
well-fitting ones. She chattered all the way.

‘We do like this place so. It is the nicest we have ever been in. All
that is wanting is that papa will buy it, and then we shall never go
away again.’

It was a pleasant place, though not grand; a homely-looking, roomy,
red-brick house, covered with creepers--the Virginian one with its
leaves just beginning to be painted. There was a bright sunny garden
full of flowers in front, and then a paddock, with cows belonging to a
farmer, Mysie said. It was her ambition to have them of their own ‘when
papa came home,’ when all good things were to happen. Behind there were
large stable-yards and offices, too large for Lady Merrifield’s one
horse and one pony, and thus available for the children’s menagerie of
rabbits, guinea-pigs, magpie, and the like. On the way Mysie was only
too happy to explain the family as she called it, when she had recovered
from her astonishment that Dolores, always living in England, could
not ‘count up her cousins.’ ‘Why they always had been shown their
photographs on a Sunday evening after the Bible pictures, and even
little Primrose knew all the likeness, even of those she had never
seen.’

The catalogue of names and ages followed.

Dolores heard it with a feeling of bewilderment, and a sense that one
Maude was worth all the eight put together with whom she was called
on to be familiar. She found herself standing in a court, rather
grass-grown, where Gillian, with little Primrose by her side, was
flinging peas to a number of pigeons, grey, white, and brown, who
fluttered round her. Valetta and Fergus were on the granary steps,
throwing meal and sop mixed together to a host of cackling, struggling
fowls, who tried to leap over each other’s backs. Wilfred seemed busy at
some hutches where some rabbits twitched their noses at cabbage leaves.
Mysie proceeded to minister to some black and rust-coloured guinea-pigs,
which Dolores thought very ugly, uninteresting, and odorous.

Then there were dogs jumping about everywhere, and cats and kittens
parading before people’s feet, so that Dolores felt as if she had
been turned into a den of wild beasts, and resolved against ever again
venturing into the court at ‘feeding-time.’ A big bell gathered all the
children up together into a race to the house. There was another scurry
to change shoes and wash hands, and then Mysie conducted her cousin
into a large, cheerful, wainscoted room on the ground floor, with deep
windows, and numerous little, solid-looking deal tables. There were Lady
Merrifield and a young lady in spectacles, to whom Dolores was presented
as ‘your new pupil,’ and every one sat down at one of the little tables,
on which there were Bibles and Prayer-books.

Lady Merrifield took the two youngest on each side of her. Dolores found
a table ready for her with the books. A passage in the New Testament was
given out and read verse by verse, to the end of the subject, which was
the Parable of the Tares, and then Lady Merrifield gave a short lesson
on it, asking questions, and causing references to be found, according
to a book of notes, she had ready at hand.

‘Just like a charity school,’ thought Dolores, when she was able to
glance at the time-table, and saw that two days in the week there was
Old Testament, two days New, one day Catechism, one day Prayer-book.
Only half an hour was thus appropriated, but to her mind it was an
old-fashioned waste of time, and very tiresome.

Then came a ring at the door-bell. ‘Mr. Poulter,’ she heard, and to her
amazement, she found that Gillian and Mysie, as well as their brothers,
had Latin lessons in the dining-room with the curate. The two girls and
Fergus only went to him every other day, Wilfred every day, as Gillian
was learning Greek and mathematics. What was Dolores to do?

‘Have you done any Latin, my dear?’ asked her aunt.

‘Not yet. Father wished to be quite convinced that the professor was a
good scholar,’ said Dolores.

‘Very well. We will wait a little,’ said Aunt Lilias, and Dolores
indignantly thought that she was amused.

Mysie was sent off to her music in the drawing-room, whither her mother
followed with Primrose’s little lessons, leaving the schoolroom piano to
Valetta, and Fergus to write copies and to do sums, while Miss Vincent
examined the new-comer, which she did by giving her some questions to
answer in writing, and some French and German to translate and parse
also in writing.

The music was inconvenient to a girl who had always prepared her work
alone. She could do the language work easily, but the questions teased
her. They seemed to her of no use, and quite out of her beat. No dates,
none of the subject she had specially got up. Why, if Miss Vincent did
not know that people were not to be expected to answer stupid questions
about history quite out of their own line, that was her fault.

She did what she knew, and then sat biting the top of her pen till
her aunt came back, and there was a change in occupations all round,
resulting in her having to read French aloud, which she knew she did
well; but it was provoking to find that Gillian read quite as well, and
knew a word at which she had made a shot, and a wrong one.

She heard the observation pass between her aunt and the governess,
‘Languages fair, but she seems to have very little general information.’

General information, indeed! Just as if she who had lived in London,
gone to lectures, and travelled on the Continent, must not know more
than these children cast up and down in a soldier’s life; and as if
her Fraulein, with all her diplomas, must not be far superior to a
mere little daily governess, and a mother! It was all for the sake of
depreciating her.

At twelve o’clock, to her further indignation, she found there was to be
an hour of reading aloud and of needlework-actual plain needlework. The
three girls were making under-garments for themselves; and on Dolores
proving to have no work of any sort, her aunt sent Gillian to the
drawer, and produced a child’s pinafore, which she was desired to hem.
Each, however, had a quarter of an hour’s reading aloud of history to do
in turn, all from one big book, a history of Rome, and there was a map
hung up over the black board, where they were in turn to point to the
places mentioned. Before Gillian began reading, the date, and something
about the former lesson was required to be told by the children, and
it came quite readily, Valetta especially declaring that she did love
Pyrrhus, which the others seemed to think very bad taste.

Dolores knew nothing about ancient history, and thought it foolish to
study anything that did not tell in a Cambridge examination; but she
supposed they knew no better down there; and when it came to her turn
to read, she mangled the names so, that Val burst out laughing when she
spoke of A-pious-Claudius. Lady Merrifield hushed this at once, and the
girl read in a bewildered manner, and as one affronted. She saw he aunt
looking at her piece of hemming, which, to say the truth, would not have
done credit to Primrose, and the recollection came across her of all
the oppressed orphans who had been made household drudges, so that her
reading did not become more intelligible. As the clock struck one, a
warning gong was heard; everybody jumped up, the work was folded away,
and with the obeisance at the door, Gillian and Val ran away.

Mysie stayed a little longer, it being her turn to tidy the room; and
Lady Merrifield said to Dolores--

‘I must teach you how to hold your needle tomorrow, my dear.’

‘I hate work,’ responded Dolores.

‘Val does not like it,’ said her aunt; ‘nor indeed did I at your age;
but one cannot be an independent woman without being able to take care
of one’s own clothes, so I resolved that these children should learn
better than I did. Do you like a take a run with Mysie before dinner?
Or there is the amusing shelf. Books may be taken out after one o’clock,
and they must be put back at eight, or they are confiscated for the
ensuing day,’ she added, pointing to a paper below where this sentence
was written.

Dolores was still rather tired, and more inclined to make friends with
the books than with the cousins. There were fewer than she expected, and
nothing like so many absolute stories as she was used to reading with
Maude Sefton.

‘Those are such grown-up books,’ she said to Mysie, who came to assist
her choice, and pointed to the upper shelves.

‘Oh, but grown-up books are nicest!’ returned Mysie; ‘at least, when
they don’t begin being stupid and marrying too soon. They must do it at
last to get out of the story, and it’s nicer than dying, but they can
have lots of nice adventures first. But here are the ‘Feats on the
Fiords’ and the ‘Crofton Boys’ and ‘Water Babies,’ and all the volumes
of ‘Aunt Judy,’ if you like the younger sort. Or the dear, dear ‘Thorn
Fortress;’ that’s good for young and old.’

‘Haven’t you any books of your own?’

‘Oh yes; this ‘Thorn Fortress’ is Val’s, and ‘A York and a Lancaster
Rose’ is mine, but whenever any one gives us a book, if it is not a
weeny little gem like Gill’s ‘Christian Year,’ or my ‘Little Pillow,’ or
Val’s ‘Children in the Wood,’ we bring it to mother, and if it is nice,
we keep it here, for every one to read. If it is just rather silly, and
stupid, we may read it once, and then she keeps it; and if it is very
silly indeed, she puts it out of the way.’

Mysie said it as if it had been killing an animal.

‘Have you got many books?’

‘Yes; but I don’t mean to have them knocked about by all the boys, nor
put out of the way neither.’

‘Mamma said we were to be all like sisters,’ said Mysie, with rather a
craving for the new books; but Dolores tossed up her head and said--

‘We can’t be. It’s nonsense to say so.’

To her surprise, Mysie turned round to Lady Merrifield, who was looking
at some exercises that Miss Vincent had laid before her.

‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘is it fair that Dolores should read our books, if
she won’t give you up hers to look over, and be like ours?’

‘Mysie,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘you can’t expect Dolores to like all
our home plans till she is used to them. No, my dear, you need not be
afraid; you shall keep your books in your own room, and nobody shall
meddle with them. I am sure your cousins would not wish to be so unkind
as to deprive you of the use of theirs.’

By the time Dolores had made up her mind to take ‘Tom Brown,’ it was
time for the general flight to prepare for dinner, and she found her
room made to look very pleasant, and almost homelike, for her books and
little knickknacks had been put out, not quite as she preferred, but
still so as to make the place seem like her own. She was pleased enough
to be quite gracious to Mysie and Val who came to visit her, and to
offer to let them read any of her books; when they both thanked her and
said--

‘If mamma lets us.’

‘Oh, then you won’t have them,’ said Dolores; ‘I’m not going to let her
have my books to take away.’

‘You don’t think she would take them away, when she said she wouldn’t?’
said Mysie, hotly.

‘Why, what would she do if she didn’t happen to approve of them?’

‘Only tell us not to read them.’

‘And wouldn’t you?’

‘Why, Dolores!’ in such a tone as made her ashamed of her question; and
she said, ‘Well, father never makes any fuss about what I read. He has
other things to think of.’

‘How do you get books, then?’

‘I buy them. And Maude Sefton, she’s my great friend, has lots given to
her, but nobody bothers about reading them. They aren’t grown-up books,
you know.’

‘How stupid,’ said Val. ‘You had better read the ‘Talisman,’ and then
you’ll see how nice a grown-up book is.’

‘The ‘Talisman!’ Why, Maude Sefton’s brother had to get it up for his
holiday task, and he said it was all rot and bosh.’

‘What a horridly stupid boy he must be,’ returned Mysie. ‘Why, I
remember when Jasper once had the ‘Talisman’ to do, and the big ones
were so delighted. Mamma read it out, and I was just old enough to
listen. I remembered all about Sir Kenneth and Roswal.’

‘Tom Sefton’s not stupid!’ said Dolores, in wrath; ‘but--but the book is
stupid and out of date! I heard father and the professor say it was gone
by.’

Mysie and Valetta looked perfectly astounded, and Dolores pursued her
advantage.

‘Of course it is all very well for you that have never lived in London,
nor had any advantages.’

‘But we have advantages!’ cried Val.

‘You don’t know what advantages are,’ said Dolores.

‘There’s the gong,’ cried Mysie, and down they all plunged into the
dining-room, where the family were again collected, with Hal at one end
and his mother at the other.

Dolores was amazed when, at the first pause, after every one was help,
Valetta’s voice arose.

‘Mamma, what are advantages?’

‘Don’t you know, Val?’

‘Dolores says we haven’t any. And I said we have. And she says I don’t
know what advantages are.’

Hal and Gillian were both laughing with all their might. Their mother
kept her countenance, and said--

‘I suppose every one has advantages of some sort, and perhaps without
knowing them.’

‘I’m sure I know,’ cried Fergus.

‘Well, what are they?’ asked Harry.

‘Having mamma!’ cried the little boy.

‘Hear, hear! That’s right, Fergy man! Couldn’t be better!’ cried Harry,
and there was a general acclamation, which inspired gentle Mysie with
the fear that her motherless cousin might feel the contrast, and, though
against rules, she whispered--

‘She will make you like one of us.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ returned Dolores, a little contemptuously.

‘What did you mean?’ said Mysie.

‘Why, you’ve no classes, nor lectures, nor master, and only just a mere
daily governess.’

Dolores did not mean this to be heard beyond her neighbour, but Mysie
demanded--

‘What, do you want to be doing lessons all day long?’

‘No, but good governesses never are daily!’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Gillian, turning round on her. ‘Perhaps you
don’t know that Miss Vincent has a First Class Cambridge Certificate in
everything, and is daily, because she likes to live with her mother.’

‘I think,’ added Lady Merrifield, with a smile, ‘that Dolores has been
in the way of seeing more clever people, and getting superior teaching
of some kind, but we will do the best we can for her, and try not to let
her miss many advantages.’

Dolores felt a little abashed, and decidedly angry at being put in the
wrong.

The elders kindly turned away the general attention from her. There was
a great deal of merry family fun going on, which was quite like a new
language to her. Fergus and Primrose wanted to go out in search of
blackberries. Gillian undertook to drive them in the cart, but as the
donkey had once or twice refused to cross a little stream of water that
traversed the road, the brothers foretold that she would ignominiously
come back again.

‘Gill and water are perilous!’ observed Hal.

‘Jack’s not here,’ said Gillian; ‘besides, it is down, not up the hill,
and I’m sure I don’t want to draw a pail of water.’

‘No--Sancho will do that.’

‘The gong will sound and sound, buzz and roar,’ said Wilfred. ‘No Gill!
no little ones! We shall send out and find them stuck fast in the lane,
Sancho with his feet spread out wide, Gill with three or four sticks
lying broken on the road round her, the kids reduced to eating
blackberries like the children in the wood.’

‘Don’t Fred,’ said Gillian. ‘You’ll frighten them.’

‘Little donkeys!’ said Wilfred.

‘If they were, we shouldn’t want Sancho,’ said Val.

It was not a very sublime bit of wit, but there was a great laugh at
it all round the table. Val and Fergus declared they would go too, till
they heard that Nurse Halfpenny said she would not let the little ones
go out without her to tear their clothes to pieces.

Every one unanimously declared that would be no fun at all, and turned
to mamma to beg her to forbid nurse to come out and spoil everything.

‘That’s just her view,’ said mamma, laughing; ‘she thinks you spoil
everything.’

‘Oh, that’s clothes! Spoiling fun is worse.’

‘But were you really going with the old Halfpenny, Gill?’ said Mysie,
turning to her.

‘Yes,’ said Gillian. ‘You know I can manage her pretty well when it is
only the little ones and they wouldn’t have any pleasure otherwise.’

‘Oh come, Gill,’ intreated Fergus, ‘or nurse will make us sit in the
donkey-cart all the time while Lois picks the blackberries!’

‘Mamma, do tell her not to come,’ intreated Valetta, and more of them
joined in with her.

‘No, my dears, I don’t like to vex her when she thinks she is doing her
duty.’

‘She wouldn’t come if you did, mamma,’ and there was a general outcry
of intreaty that mamma would come with them, and defend them from Mrs.
Halfpenny, as Fergus, who was rather a formal little fellow, expressed
it, and mamma, after a little consideration, consented to drive the
pony-carriage in that direction, and to announce to Nurse Halfpenny that
she herself would take charge of the children. Whereupon there was a
whoop and a war-dance of jubilee, quite overwhelming to Dolores, who
could not but privately ask Mysie if Nurse Halfpenny was so very cross.

‘Awfully,’ said Mysie, and Wilfred added--

‘As savage as a bear with a sore head.’

‘Like Mrs. Crabtree?’ asked Dolores.

‘Exactly. Jasper called her so when he wanted to lash her up, till at
lash she got hold of his ‘Holiday House’ and threw it into the sea, and
it was in Malta and we couldn’t get another,’ said Mysie.

‘And haven’t you one?’

‘Yes, Gill and I save for it; but mamma only let us have it on condition
we made a solemn promise never to tease nurse about it.’

‘And does she go at you with that dreadful thing--what’s it name--the
tawse?’

‘Ah! you’ll soon know,’ said Wilfred.

‘No, no; nonsense, Fred,’ said Mysie, as Dolores’ face worked with
consternation. ‘She never hits us, not if we are ever so tiresome. Papa
and mamma would not let her.’

‘But why do they let her be so dreadful? Maude’s nurse used to be horrid
and slap her, and when her mother found it out the woman was sent away
directly.’

Nurse Halfpenny isn’t that sort,’ said Mysie. ‘Her husband was papa’s
colour-sergeant, and he got a sun-stroke and died, and then she came
when Gillian was just born, and so weak and tiny that she would never
have lived if nurse hadn’t watched her day and night, and so Gillian’s
her favourite, except the youngest, and she is ever so good, you know.
I’ve heard the ladies, when we were with the dear old 111th, telling
mamma how they envied her her trustworthy treasure.’

‘I’m sure they might have had her at half-price,’ said Wilfred. ‘She’s
be dear at a farthing!’

At that moment Mrs. Halfpenny’s voice was heard demanding if it were
really her ladyship’s pleasure to go out, fatiguing herself to the very
death with all the children rampaging about her and tearing themselves
to pieces, if not poisoning themselves with all sorts of nasty berries.

‘Indeed I’ll take care of them and bring them back safe to you,’
responded her ladyship, very much in the tone of one of her own children
making promises. ‘Put them on their brown hollands and they can’t come
to much harm.’

‘Well, if it’s your wish, ma’am, my leddy; what must be, must, but I
know how it will be--you’ll come back tired out, fit to drop, and Miss
Val and Miss Primrose won’t have a rag fit to be seen on them. But if
it’s your will, what must be must, for you’re no better than a bairn
yourself, general’s lady though you be, and G.C.B.’

‘No, nurse, you’ll be G.C.B.--Grand Commander of the Bath--when we come
home,’ called out Hall, who was leaning on the banister at the bottom,
and there was a general laugh, during which Dolly tardily climbed the
stairs, so tardily that her aunt, meeting her, asked whether she was
still tired, and if she would rather have the afternoon to arrange her
room.

She said ‘yes,’ but not ‘thank you,’ and went on, relieved that Mysie
did not offer to stay and help her, and yet rather offended at being
left alone, while all the others went their own way. She heard them
pattering and clattering, shouting and calling up and down the passages,
and then came a great silence, while they could be seen going down the
drive, some on foot, some in the pony-chaise or donkey-cart.

Her things had all been unpacked and put in order, and her room had
a very cheerful window. It was prettily furnished with fresh pink and
white dimity, and choice-looking earthenware, but to London eyes like
those of Dolores it seemed very old-fashioned and what she called ‘poked
up.’ The paper was ugly, the chimney-piece was a narrow, painting thing,
of the same dull, stone-colour as the door and the window-frame. And
then the clear air, the perfect stillness, the absence of anything
moving in the view from the window gave the citybred child a sense of
dreadful loneliness and dreariness as she sat on the side of her bed,
with one foot under her, gazing dolefully round her, and in he head
composing her own memoirs.

‘Fully occupied with their own plans and amusements, the lonely orphan
was left in solitude. Her aunt knew not how her heart ached after the
home she had left, but the machine of the family went its own way and
trod her under its wheels.’

This was such a fine sentence that it was almost a comfort, and she
thought of writing it to Maude Sefton, but as she got up to fetch her
writing-case from the schoolroom, she saw that her books were standing
just in the way she did not like, and with all the volumes mixed up
together. So she tumbled them all out of the shelves on the floor, and
at that moment Mrs. Halfpenny looked into the room.

‘Well, to be sure!’ she exclaimed, ‘when me and Lois have been working
at them books all the morning.’

‘They were all nohow--as I don’t like them,’ said Dolores.

‘Oh, very well, please yourself then, miss, if that’s all the thanks you
have in your pocket, you may put them up your own way, for all I care.
Only my lady will have the young ladies’ rooms kept neat and orderly, or
they lose marks for it.’

‘I don’t want any help,’ said Dolores, crossly, and Mrs. Halfpenny shut
the door with a bang. ‘The menials are insulting me,’ said Dolores to
herself, and a tear came to her eye, while all the time there was a
certain mournful satisfaction in being so entirely the heroine of a
book.

She went to work upon her books, at first hotly and sharply, and very
carefully putting the tallest in the centre so as to form a gradual
ascent with the tops and not for the world letting a second volume stand
before its elder brother, but she soon got tired, took to peeping at
one or two parting gifts which she had not yet been able to read, and at
last got quite absorbed in the sorrows of a certain Clare, whose golden
hair was cut short by her wicked aunt, because it outshone her cousin’s
sandy locks. There was reason to think that a tress of this same golden
hair would lead to her recognition by some grandfather of unknown
magnificence, as exactly like that of his long-lost Claribel, and this
might result in her assuming splendours that would annihilate the aunt.
Things seemed tending to a fracture of the ice under the cruellest
cousin of all, and her rescue by Clare, when they would be carried
senseless into the great house, and the recognition of Clare and the
discomfiture of her foes would take place. How could Dolores shut the
book at such a critical moment!

So there she was sitting in the midst of her scattered books, when the
galloping and scampering began again, and Mysie knocked at the door
to tell her there were pears, apples, biscuits, and milk in the
dining-room, and that after consuming them, lessons had to be learnt for
the next day, and then would follow amusements, evening toilette, seven
o’clock tea, and either games or reading aloud till bedtime. As to the
books, Mysie stood aghast.

‘I thought nurse and Lois had done them all for you.’

‘They did them all wrong, so I took them down.’

Oh, dear! We must put them in, or there’ll be a report.’

‘A report!’

‘Yes, Nurse Halfpenny reports us whenever she doesn’t find our rooms
tidy, and then we get a bad mark. Perhaps mamma wouldn’t give you one
this first day, but it is best to make sure. Shall I help you, or you
won’t have time to eat any pears?’

Dolores was thankful for help, and the books were scrambled in anyhow
on the shelves; for Mysie’s good nature was endangering her share of the
afternoon’s gouter, though perhaps it consoled her that her curiosity
was gratified by a hasty glance at the backs of her cousin’s
story-books.

By the time the two girls got down to the dining-table, every one had
left the room, and there only remained one doubtful pear, and three
baked apples, besides the loaf and the jug of milk. Mysie explained that
not being a regular meal, no one was obliged to come punctually to it,
or to come at all, but these who came tardily might fare the worse. As
to the blackberries, for which Dolores inquired, the girls were going
to make jam of them themselves the next day; but Mysie added, with
an effort, she would fetch some, as her cousin had had none in the
gathering.

‘Oh no, thank you; I hate blackberries,’ said Dolores, helping herself
to an apple.

‘Do you?’ said Mysie, blankly. ‘We don’t. They are such fun. You can’t
think how delicious the great overhanging clusters are in the lane. Some
was up so high that Hal had to stand up in the cart to reach them, and
to take Fergus up on his shoulder. We never had such a blackberrying as
with mamma and Hal to help us. And only think, a great carriage came by,
with some very grand people in it; we think it was the Dean; and they
looked down the lane and stared, so surprised to see what great mind to
call out, ‘Fee, faw, fum.’ You know nothing makes such a good giant
as Fergus standing on Hal’s shoulders, and a curtain over them to hide
Hal’s face. Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t told you! You would have been a new
person to show it to.’

Dolores made very little answer, finished her apple, and followed to
the schoolroom, where an irregular verb, some geography, and some dates
awaited her.

Then followed another rush of the populace for the evening meal of the
live stock, but in this Dolores was too wary to share. She made her way
up to her retreat again, and tried to lose the sense of her trouble
and loneliness in a book. Then came the warning bell, and a prodigious
scuffling, racing and chasing, accompanied by yells as of terror and
roars as of victory, all cut short by the growls of Mrs. Halfpenny.
Everything then subsided. The world was dressing; Dolores dressed too,
feeling hurt and forlorn at no one’s coming to help her, and yet worried
when Mysie arrived with orders from Mrs. Halfpenny to come to her to
have her sash tied.

‘I think a servant ought to come to me. Caroline always does,’ said the
only daughter with dignity.

‘She can’t, for she is putting Primrose to bed. Oh, it’s so delicious to
see Prim in her bath,’ said Mysie, with a little skip. ‘Make haste, or
we shall miss her, the darling.’

Dolores did not feel pressed to behold the spectacle, and not being
in the habit of dressing without assistance, she was tardy, and Mysie
fidgeted about and nearly distracted her. Thus, when she reached the
nursery, Primrose was already in her little white bed-gown, and was
being incited by Valetta to caper about on her cot, like a little
acrobat, as her sisters said, while Mrs. Halfpenny declared that ‘they
were making the child that rampageous, she should not get her to sleep
till midnight.’

They would have been turned out much sooner, and Primrose hushed into
silence, if nurse’s soul had not been horrified by the state of Dolores’
hair and the general set of her garments.

‘My certie!’ she exclaimed--a dreadful exclamation in the eyes of the
family, who knew it implied that in all her experience Mrs. Halfpenny
had never known the like! And taking Dolores by the hand, she led the
wrathful and indignant girl back into her bedroom, untied and tied,
unbuttoned and buttoned, brushed and combed in spite of the second bell
ringing, the general scamper, and the sudden apparition of Mysie and
Val, whom she bade run away and tell her leddyship that ‘Miss Mohoone
should come as soon as she was sorted, but she ought to come up early
to have her hair looked to, for ‘twas shame to see how thae fine London
servants sorted a motherless bairn.’

Dolores felt herself insulted; she turned red all over, with feelings
the old Scotchwoman could not understand. She expected to hear the
message roared out to the whole assembly round the tea-table, but Mysie
had discretion enough to withhold her sister from making it public.

The tea itself, though partaken of by Lady Merrifield, seemed an
indignity to the young lady accustomed to late dinners. After it, the
whole family played at ‘dumb crambo.’ Dolores was invited to join,
and instructed to ‘do the thing you think it is;’ but she was entirely
unused to social games, and thought it only ridiculous and stupid when
the word being a rhyme to ite, Fergus gave rather too real a blow to
Wilfred, and Gillian answered, ‘’Tis not smite;’ Wilfred held out a
hand, and was told, ‘’Tis not right;’ Val flourished in the air as if
holding a string, and was informed that ‘kite’ was wrong; when Hal
ran away as if pursued by Fergus by way of flight; and Mysie performed
antics which she was finally obliged to explain were those of a sprite.
Dolores could not recollect anything, and only felt annoyed at being
made to feel stupid by such nonsense, when Mysie tried to make her a
present of a suggestion by pointing to the back of a letter. Neither
write nor white would come into her head, though little Fergus
signalized himself, just before he was swept off to bed, by seizing a
pen and making strokes!

After his departure, Lady Merrifield read aloud ‘The Old oak Staircase,’
which had been kept to begin when Dolores came, Hal taking the book in
turn with his mother. And so ended Dolores’ first day of banishment.




CHAPTER V. -- THE FIRST WALK



‘What a lot of letters for you, mamma!’ cried Mysie.

‘Papa!’ exclaimed Fergus and Primrose.

‘No, it is not the right day, my dears. But here is a letter from Aunt
Ada.’

‘Oh!’ in a different tone.

‘She writes for Aunt Jane. They will come down here next Monday because
Aunt Jane is wanted to address the girls at the G.F.S. festival on
Tuesday.’

‘Aunt Jane seems to have taken to public speaking,’ said Harry. ‘It
would be rather a lark to hear her.’

‘You may have a chance,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘for here is a note from
Mrs. Blackburn to ask if I will be so very kind as to let them have the
festival here. They had reckoned upon Tillington Park, where they have
always had it before, but they hear that all the little Tillingtons have
the measles, and they don’t think it safe to venture there.’

‘It will be great fun!’ said Gillian. ‘We will have all sorts of games,
only I’m afraid they will be much stupider than the Irish girls.’

‘And ever so much stupider than the dear 111th children,’ sighed Mysie.

‘Aren’t they all great big girls?’ asked Valetta, disconsolately.

‘I believe twelve years old is the limit,’ said her mother.
‘Twelve-year-old girls have plenty of play in them, Vals, haven’t they,
Mysie? Let me see--two hundred and thirty of them.’

‘For you to feast?’ asked Harry.

‘Oh, no--that cost comes out of their own funds, Mrs. Blackburn takes
care to tell me, and Miss Hacket will find some one in Siverfold who
will provide tables and forms and crockery. I must go down and talk to
Miss Hacket as soon as lessons are over. Or perhaps it would save time
and trouble if I wrote and asked her to come up to luncheon and see the
capabilities of the place. Why, what’s the matter?’ pausing at the blank
looks.

‘The jam, mamma--the blackberry jam!’ cried Valetta.

‘Well?’

‘We can’t do it without Gill, and she will have to be after that Miss
Constance,’ explained Val.

‘Oh! never mind. She won’t stay all the afternoon,’ said Gillian,
cheerfully. ‘Luncheon people don’t.’

‘Yes, but then there will be lessons to be learnt.’

‘Look here, Val,’ said Gillian, ‘if you and Mysie will learn your
lessons for tomorrow while I’m bound to Miss Con., I’ll do mine some
time in the evening, and be free for the jam when she is gone.’

‘The dear delicious jam!’ cried Val, springing about upon her chair; and
Lady Merrifield further said--

‘I wonder whether Mysie and Dolores would like to take the note down.
They could bring back a message by word of mouth.’

‘Oh, thank you, mamma!’ cried Mysie.

‘Then I will write the note as soon as we have done breakfast. Don’t
dawdle, Fergus boy.’

‘Mayn’t I go?’ demanded Wilfred.

‘No, my dear. It is your morning with Mr. Poulter. And you must take
care not to come back later than eleven, Mysie dear; I cannot have him
kept waiting. Dolores, do you like to go?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Dolores, partly because it was at any rate gain
to escape from that charity-school lesson in the morning, and partly
because Valetta was looking at her in the ardent hope that she would
refuse the privilege of the walk, and it therefore became valuable;
but there was so little alacrity in her voice that her aunt asked her
whether she were quite rested and really liked the walk, which would be
only half a mile to the outskirts of the town.

Dolores hated personal inquiries beyond everything, and replied that she
was quite well, and didn’t mind.

So soon as she and Mysie had finished, they were sent off to get ready,
while Aunt Lilias wrote her note in pencil at the corner of the table,
which she never left, while Fergus and Primrose were finishing their
meal; but she had to silence a storm at the ‘didn’t mind’--Gillian even
venturing to ask how she could send one to whom it was evidently no
pleasure to go. ‘I think she likes it more than she shows,’ said the
mother, ‘and she wants air, and will settle to her lessons the better
for it. What’s that, Val?’

‘It was my turn, mamma,’ said Valetta, in an injured voice.

‘It will be your turn next, Val,’ said her mother, cheerfully. ‘Dolores
comes between you and Mysie, so she must take her place accordingly. And
today we grant her the privilege of the new-comer.’

Dolores would have esteemed the privilege more, if, while she was going
upstairs to put on her hat, the recollection had not occurred to her of
one of the victim’s of an aunt’s cruelty who was always made to run on
errands while her favoured cousins were at their studies. Was this the
beginning? Somehow, though her better sense knew this was a foolish
fancy, she had a secret pleasure in pitying herself, and posing to
herself as a persecuted heroine. And then she was greatly fretted
to find the housemaid in her room, looking as if no one else had any
business there. What was worse, she could not find her jacket. She
pulled out all her drawers with fierce, noisy jerks, and then turned
round on the maid, sharply demanding--

‘Who has taken my jacket?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know, Miss Dollars. You’d best ask Mrs. Halfpenny.’

‘If--’ but at that moment Mysie ran in, holding the jacket in her hand.
‘I saw it in the nursery,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Nurse had taken it
to mend! Come along. Where’s your hat?’

But there was pursuit; Mrs. Halfpenny was at the door. ‘Young ladies,
you are not going out of the policy in that fashion.’

‘Mamma sent us. Mamma wants us to take a note in a hurry. Only to Miss
Hacket,’ pleaded Mysie, as Mrs. Halfpenny laid violent hands on her
brown Holland jacket, observing--

‘My leddy never bade ye run off mair like a wild worricow than a general
officer’s daughter, Miss Mysie. What’s that? Only Miss Hacket, do you
say? You should respect yourself and them you come of mair than to show
yourself to a blind beetle in an unbecoming way. ‘Tis well that there’s
one in the house that knows what is befitting. Miss Dollars, you stand
still; I must sort your necktie before you go. ‘Tis all of a wisp. Miss
Mysie, you tell your mamma that I should be fain to know her pleasure
about Miss Dollars’ frocks. She’ve scarce got one--coloured or
mourning--that don’t want altering.’

Mrs. Halfpenny always caused Dolores such extreme astonishment and awe
that she obeyed her instantly, but to be turned about and tidied by an
authoritative hand was extremely disagreeable to the independent young
lady. Caroline had never treated her thus, being more willing to permit
untidiness than to endure her temper. She only durst, after the pair
were released, remonstrate with Mysie on being termed Miss Dollars.

‘They can’t make out your name,’ said Mysie. ‘I tried to teach Lois, but
nurse said she had no notion of new-fangled nonsense names.’

‘I’m sure Valetta and Primrose are worse.’

‘Ah! but Val was born at Malta, and mamma had always loved the Grand
Master La Valetta so much, and had written verses about him when she was
only sixteen. And Primrose was named after the first primrose mamma had
seen for twelve years--the first one Val and I had ever seen.’

‘They called me Miss Mohun at home.’

‘Yes, but we can’t here, because of Aunt Jane.’

All this was chattered forth on the stairs before the two girls reached
the dining-room, where Mysie committed the feeding of her pets to Val,
and received the note, with fresh injunctions to come home by eleven,
and bring word whether Miss Hacket and Miss Constance would both come to
luncheon.

‘Oh dear!’ sighed Gillian, and there was a general groan round the
table.

‘It can’t be helped, my dear.’

‘Oh no, I know it can’t,’ said Gillian, resignedly.

‘You see,’ said Mysie. ‘Yes, come along, Basto dear. You see Gill has to
be--down, Basto, I say!--a young lady when.... Never mind him, Dolores,
he won’t hurt. When Miss Constance Hacket and--leave her alone, Basto, I
say!--and she is such a goose. Not you, Dolores, but Miss Constance.’

‘Oh that dog! I wish you would not take him.’

‘Not take dear old Basto! Why ‘tis such a treat for him to get a walk in
the morning--the delight of his jolly old black heart. Isn’t he a dear
old fellow? and he never hurt anybody in his life! It’s only setting
off! He will quiet down in a minute; but I couldn’t disappoint him.
Could I, my old man?’

Never having lived with animals nor entered into their feelings, Dolores
could not understand how a dog’s pleasure could be preferred to her
comfort, and felt a good deal hurt, though Basto’s antics subsided as
soon as they were past the inner gate shutting in the garden from the
paddock, which was let out to a farmer. Mysie, however, ran on as usual
with her stream of information--

‘The Miss Hacket were sister or daughters or something to some old man
who used to be clergyman here, and they are all married up but these
two, and they’ve got the dearest little house you ever saw. They had
a nephew in the 111th, and so they came and called on us at once. Miss
Hacket is a regular old dear, but we none of us can bear Miss Constance,
except that mamma says we ought to be sorry for her because she leads
such a confined life. Miss Hacket and Aunt Jane always do go on so about
the G.F.S. They both are branch secretaries, you know.’

‘I know! Aunt Jane did bother Mrs. Sefton so that she says she will
never have another of those G.F.S. girls. She says it is a society for
interference.’

‘Mamma likes it,’ said Mysie.

‘Oh! but she is only just come.’

‘Yes; but she always looked after the school children at Beechcroft
before she married, and she and Alethea and Phyllis had the soldiers’
children up on Sunday. Alethea taught the little drummer boys, and they
were so funny. I wonder who teaches them now! Gill always goes down
to help Miss Hacket with her G.F.S. classes. She has one on Sunday
afternoon, and one on Tuesday for sewing, and she is the only young lady
in the place who can do plain needlework properly.’

‘Sewing-machines can work. What the use of fussing about it!’

‘They can’t mend,’ said Mysie. ‘Besides, do you know, in the American
war, all the sewing-machines in the Southern States got out of order,
and as all the machinery people were in the north, the poor ladies
didn’t know what to do, and couldn’t work without them.’

‘Sewing-machines are a recent invention,’ said Dolores.

‘Oh! you didn’t think I meant the great old War of Independence. No, I
meant the war about the slaves--secession they called it.’

‘That is not in the history of England,’ said Dolores, as if Mysie had
no business to look beyond.

‘Why! of course not, when it happened in America. Papa told us about
it. He read it in some paper, I think. Don’t you like learning things in
that way?’

‘No. I don’t approve of irregular unsystematic knowledge.’

Dolores has heard her mother say something of this kind, and it came
into her head most opportunely as a defence of her father--for she would
not for the world have confessed that he did not talk to her as Sir
Jasper Merrifield seemed to have done to his children. In fact she
rather despised the General for so doing.

‘Oh! but it is such fun picking up things out of lesson time!’ said
Mysie.

‘That is the Edge--,’ Dolores was not sure of the word Edgeworthian,
so she went on to ‘system. Professor Sefton says he does not approve of
harassing children with cramming them with irregular information at all
sorts of times. Let play be play and lessons be lessons, he says, not
mixed up together, and so Rex and Maude never learnt anything--not a
letter--till they were seven years old.’

‘How stupid!’ cried Mysie.

‘Maude’s not stupid!’ cried Dolores, ‘nor the professor either! She’s my
great friend.’

‘I didn’t say she was stupid,’ said Mysie, apologetically, ‘only that
it must be very stupid not to be able to read till one was seven. Could
you?’

‘Oh, yes. I can’t remember when I couldn’t read. But Maude used to play
with a little girl who could read and talk French at five years old, and
she died of water upon her brain.’

‘Dear me! Primrose can read quite well,’ said Mysie, somewhat alarmed;
‘but then,’ she went on in a reassured voice, ‘so could all of us except
Jasper and Gillian, and they felt the heat so much at Gibraltar that
they were quite stupid while they were there.’

This discussion brought the two girls across the paddock out into a road
with a broad, neat footpath, where numerous little children were being
exercised with nurses and perambulators. At first it was bordered by
fields on either side, but villas soon began to spring up, and presently
the girls reached what looked like a long, low ‘cottage residence,’ but
was really two, with a verandah along the front, and a garden divided
in the middle by a paling covered with canary nasturtium shrubs. The
verandah on one side was hung with a rich purple pall of the dark
clematis, on the other by a Gloire de Dijon rose. There were bright
flower beds, and the dormer windows over the verandah looked like
smiling eyes under their deep brows of creeper-trimmed verge-board. What
London-bred Dolores saw was a sight that shocked her--a lady standing
unbonnetted just beyond the verandah, talking to a girl whose black hat
and jacket looked what Mysie called ‘very G.F.S.-y.’

The lady did not turn out to be young or beautiful. She was near middle
age, and looked as if she were far too busy to be ever plump; she had a
very considerable amount of nose and rather thin, dark hair, done in a
fashion which, like that of her navy blue linen dress, looked perfectly
antiquated to Dolores. As she saw the two girls at the gate she came
down the path eagerly to welcome them.

‘Ah! my dear Mysie! so kind of your dear mother! I thought I should
hear from her.’ And as she kissed Mysie, she added, ‘And this is the new
cousin. My dear, I am glad to see you here.’

Dolores thought her own dignified manner had kept off a kiss, not
knowing that Miss Hacket was far too ladylike to be over-familiar, and
that there was no need to put on such a forbidding look.

Mysie gave her message and note, but Miss Hacket could not give the
verbal answer at once till she had consulted her sister. She was not
sure whether Constance had not made an engagement to play lawn-tennis,
so they must come in.

There sounded ‘coo-roo-oo coo-roo-oo’ in the verandah, and Mysie cried--

‘Oh, the dear doves!’

Miss Hacket said she had been just feeding them when the G.F.S. girl
arrived, and as Mysie came to a halt in delight at the aspect of a young
one that had just crept out into public life, the sister was called to
the window. She was a great deal younger and more of the present day
in style than her sister, and had pensive-looking grey eyes, with
a somewhat bored languid manner as she shook hands with the early
visitors.

The sisters had a little consultation over the note, during which
Dolores studied them, and Mysie studied the doves, longing to see the
curious process of feeding the young ones.

When Miss Hacket turned back to her with the acceptance of the
invitation, she thought she might wait just to help Miss Hacket to put
in the corn and the sop. Meantime Miss Constance talked to Dolores.

‘Did you arrive yesterday?’

‘No, the day before.’

‘Ah! it must be a great change to you.’

‘Indeed it is.’

‘This must be the dullest place in England, I think,’ said Miss
Constance. ‘No variety, no advantages of any kind! And have not you
lived in London?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is my ambition! I once spent six weeks in London, and it was an
absolute revelation--the opening of another world. And I understand that
Mr. Maurice Mohun is such a clever man, and that you saw a great deal of
his friends.’

‘I used,’ said Dolores, thinking of those days of her mother when she
was the pet and plaything of the guests, incited to say clever and pert
things, which then were passed round and embellished till she neither
knew them nor comprehended them.

‘That is what I pine for!’ exclaimed Miss Constance. ‘Nobody here has
any ideas. You can’t conceive how borne and prejudiced every one her who
is used to something better! Don’t you love art needlework?’

‘Maude Sefton has been working Goosey Goosey Gander on a toilet-cover.’

‘Oh! how sweet! We never get any new patterns here! Do come in and see,
I don’t know which to take; I brought three beginnings home to choose
from, and I am quite undecided.’

‘Mrs. Sefton draws her own patterns,’ said Dolores. ‘Something she gets
ideas from Lorenzo Dellman--he’s an artist, you know, and a regular
aesthete! He made her do a dado all sunflowers last year, but they are a
little gone out now, and are very staring besides, and I think she will
have some nymphs dancing among almond-trees in blue vases instead, as
soon as she has designed it.’

‘Isn’t that lovely! Oh! what would I not give for such opportunities? Do
let me have your opinion.’

So Dolores went in with her, and looked at three patterns, one of
tall daisies; another of odd-looking doves, one on each side of a red
Etruscan vase, where the water must have been as much out of their reach
as that in the pitcher was beyond the crow’s; and a third, of Little
Bo Peep. Having given her opinion in favour of Bo Peep, she was taken
upstairs to inspect the young lady’s store of crewels, and choose the
colours.

Dolores neither knew nor cared anything about fancy work, but to be
treated as an authority was quite soothing, and she fully believed
that the mere glimpses she had had of Mrs. Sefton’s work and the shop
windows, enabled her to give great enlightenment to this poor country
mouse; so she gladly went to the bedroom, with a muslin-worked
toilet-cover, embroidered curtains, plates fastened against the wall,
and table all over knick-knacks, which Miss Constance called her little
den, where she could study beauty after her own bent, while her sister
Mary was wholly engrossed with the useful, and could endure nothing but
the prose of the last century.

Meantime Mysie had forgotten how time flew in her belief that in one
minute more the young doves would want to be fed, and then in amusement
at seeing them pursue their parents with low squeaks and flutterings,
watching, too, the airs and graces, bowing, cooing, and laughing of the
old ones. When at last she was startled by hearing eleven struck, there
had to be a great hunt for Dolores in the drawing-room and garden,
and when at last Miss Hacket’s calls for her sister brought the
tow downstairs more than ten minutes had passed! Mysie was too much
dismayed, and in too great a hurry to do anything but cry, ‘Come along,
Dolores,’ and set off at such a gallop as to scandalize the Londoner,
even when Mysie recollected that it was too public a place for running,
and slackened her pace. Dolores was soon gasping, and with a stitch in
her side. Mysie would have exclaimed, ‘What were you doing with Miss
Constance?’ but breathlessness happily prevented it. The way across the
paddock seemed endless, and Mysie was chafed at having to hold back for
her companion, who panted in distress, leant against a tree, declared
she could not go on, she did not care, and then when, Mysie set off
running, was seized with fright at being left alone in this vast unknown
space, cried after her and made a rush, soon ending in sobbing breath.

At last they were at the door, and Wilfred just coming out of the
dining-room greeted them with, ‘A quarter to twelve. Won’t you catch it?
Oh my!’

‘Are they come?’ said Lady Merrifield, looking out of the schoolroom.
‘My dear children! Did Miss Hacket keep you?’

‘No, mamma,’ gasped Mysie. ‘At least it was my fault for watching the
doves.’

‘Ah! Mysie, I must not send you on a message next time. Mr. Poulter has
been waiting these twenty minutes, and I am afraid you are not fit to
take a lesson now. Dolores looks quite done up! I shall send you both
to lie down on your beds and learn your poetry for an hour. And you must
write an apology to Mr. Poulter this afternoon. No, don’t go in now. Go
up at once, Gillian shall bring your books. Does Miss Hacket come?’

‘Yes, mamma,’ said Mysie humbly, looking at Dolores all the time.
She was too generous to say that part of the delay had been caused by
looking for her cousin, and having to adapt her pace to the slower one,
but she decidedly expected the avowal from Dolores, and thought it mean
not to make it. ‘And, oh, the jam!’ she mourned as she went upstairs.
While, on the other hand, Dolores considered what she called ‘being sent
to bed’ an unmerited and unjust sentence given without a hearing; when
their tardiness had been all Mysie’s fault, not hers. She had no notion
that her aunt only sent them to lie down, because they looked heated,
tired, and spent, and was really letting them off their morning’s
lessons. It was a pity that she felt too forlorn and sullen even to
complain when Gillian brought up Macaulay’s ‘Armada’ for her to learn
the first twelve lines, or she might have come to an understanding, but
all that was elicited from her was a glum ‘No,’ when asked if she knew
it already. Gillian told her not to keep her dusty boots on the bed, and
she vouchsafed no answer, for she did not consider Gillian her mistress,
though, after she was left to herself, she found them so tight and
hot that she took them off. Then she looked over the verses rather
contemptuously--she who always learnt German poetry; and she had a great
mind to assert her independence by getting off the bed, and writing a
letter to Maude Sefton, describing the narrow stupidity of the whole
family, and how her aunt, without hearing her, had send her to be for
Mysie’s fault. However she felt so shaky and tired that she thought she
had better rest a little first, and somehow she fell fast asleep, and
was only awakened by the gong. She jumped up in haste, recollecting that
the delightful sympathizing Miss Constance was coming to luncheon,
and set her hair and dress to rights eagerly, observing, however, to
herself, that her horrid aunt was quite capable of imprisoning her all
the time for not having learnt that stupid poetry.

She hesitated a little where to go when she reached the hall, but the
schoolroom door was open, and she heard a mournful voice concluding with
a gasp--

        ‘Our glorious semper eadem, the banner of our pride.’

And Miss Vincent saying, ‘Now, my dear, go and wash your face, and try
not to be such a dismal spectacle.’

And then Mysie came out, with heavy eyes and a mottled face, showing
that she had been crying all the time she had been learning, over her
own fault certainly, but likewise over mamma’s displeasure and Dolly’s
shabbiness.

‘Well, Dora,’ said Miss Vincent, ‘have you come to repeat your poetry?’

‘No,’ said Dolores. ‘I went to sleep instead.’

‘Oh! I’m glad of that. I wish poor Mysie had done the same. I believe it
was what Lady Merrifield intended, you both looked so knocked up.’

Dolores cleared up a little at this, especially as Miss Vincent was no
relation, and she thought it a good time to make her protest against
mere English.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I supposed that was the reason she gave me such a
stupid, childish, sing-song nursery rhyme to learn. I can say lots of
Schiller and some Goethe.’

‘I advise you not to let any one hear you call Lord Macaulay’s poem a
nursery rhyme, or it might never be forgotten,’ said Miss Vincent gaily.
Then seeing the cloud return to Dolores’s face, she added, ‘You have
been brought forward in German, I see. We must try to bring your
knowledge of English literature up to be even with it.’

Dolores liked this better than anything she had yet heard, chiefly
because she had learnt from her books that governesses were not
uniformly so cruel as aunts. And besides, she felt that she had been
spared a public humiliation.

By this time the guests were ringing at the door, and Miss Vincent, with
her had on, only waiting till their entrance was made to depart. Dolores
asked whether to go into the drawing-room, and was told that Lady
Merrifield preferred that the children should only appear in the
dining-room on the sound of the gong, which was not long in being heard.

The Merrifields were trained not to chatter when there was company at
table, besides Mysie and Val were in low spirits about the chance of the
blackberry cookery. Miss Hacket sat on one side of Lady Merrifield, and
talked about what associates had answered her letters, and what villages
would send contingents of girls, and it sounded very dull to the
young people. Miss Constance was next to Hal. She looked amiable and
sympathetic at Dolores on the opposite side of the table, but discussed
lawn-tennis tournaments with her neighbour, which was quite as little
interesting to the general public as was the G.F.S. However, as soon as
Primrose had said grace, Lady Merrifield proposed to take Miss Hacket
down to the stable-yard; and the whole train followed excepting the
two girls, who trusted Hal to see whether their pets would suffer
inconvenience. However it soon was made evident to Gillian that she was
not wanted, and that Dolores and Constance had no notion of wandering
about the paved courts and bare coach-houses, among the dogs and cats,
guinea-pigs, and fowls. Indeed, Constance, who was at least seven years
older than Gillian, and a full-blown young lady, dismissed her by saying
‘that she was going to see Miss Mohun’s books.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ said Gillian, in a voice as though she were rather
surprised, though much relieved.

So off the friends went together--for of course they were to be friends.
The Miss Mohun had been uttered in a tone that clearly meant to be asked
to drop it, so they were to be Dolores and Constance henceforth, if not
Dolly and Cons. Dolores was such a lovely name that Constance could not
mangle it, and was sure there was some reason for it. The girl had, in
fact, been named after a Spanish lady, whom her mother had known and
admired in early girlhood, and to whom she had made a promise of naming
her first daughter after her. No doubt Dolores did not know that Mrs.
Mohun had regretted the childish promise which she had felt bound to
keep in spite of her husband’s dislike to the name, which he declared
would be a misfortune to the child.

Dolores was really proud of its peculiarity, and delighted to have any
one to sympathize with her, in that and a great deal besides, which she
communicated to her new friend in the window-seat of her room. When
the two ladies went home, Constance told her sister that ‘dear little
Dolores was a remarkable character, sadly misunderstood among those
common-place people, the Merrifields, and unjustly used, too, and she
should do her best for her!’

Meantime Gillian, finding herself not wanted, had repaired to the
schoolroom.

‘Oh, it is of no use,’ sighed Mysie, disconsolately. ‘I’ve ever so
much morning’s work to make up, too. And I never shall! I’ve muzzled my
head!’

By which remarkable expression Mysie signified that fatigue, crying, and
dinner had made her brains dull and heavy; but Gillian was a sensible
elder sister.

‘Don’t try your sum yet, then,’ she said. ‘Practise your scales for half
an hour, while I do my algebra, and then we’ll go over your German verbs
together. I’ll tell Miss Vincent, and she wont’ mind, and I think mamma
will be pleased if you try.’

Gillian was too much used to noises not to be able to work an equation,
and prepare her Virgil, to the sound of scales, and Mysie was a good
deal restored by them and by hope.

So when at length Constance had been summoned by her sister, who tore
herself away from the arrangements, being bound to five-o’clock tea
elsewhere, Mysie was discovered with a face still rather woe-begone, but
hopeful and persevering, and though there still was a ‘bill of parcels’
where 11 and 3/4 lbs. of mutton at 13 and 1/2d. per lb. refused to come
right, Lady Merrifield kissed her, said she had been a diligent child,
and sent her off prancing in bliss to the old ‘still-room’ stove, where
they were allowed a fire, basins, spoons, and strainers, and where the
sugar lay in a snowy heap, and the blackberries in a sanguine pile.

‘There’s partiality!’ thought Dolores, and scowled, as she stood at the
front door still gazing after Constance.

‘Won’t you come, Dolly?’ said Mysie. ‘Or haven’t you learnt your
lessons?’

‘No,’ said Dolly, making one answer serve for both questions.

‘Oh! then you can’t. Shall I ask mamma to let you off?’

‘No, I don’t care. I don’t like messes! And what’s the use if you
haven’t a cookery class?’

‘It’s such fun,’ said Val.

‘And our sisters did go to a cookery class at Dublin and taught Gill,’
added Mysie.

‘But if you haven’t done your lessons, you can’t go,’ said Valetta
decidedly.

Off they went, and Lady Merrifield presently crossed the hall, and saw
Dolores’ attitude.

‘My dear, are you waiting to say those verses?’ she said kindly.

‘I hadn’t time to learn them, I went to sleep,’ said Dolores.

‘A very good thing too, my dear. Suppose we go over them together.’

Aunt Lilias took the unwilling hand, led Dolores into the schoolroom,
and for half an hour she went over the verses with her, explaining what
was new to the girl, and vividly describing the agitation of Plymouth,
and the flocks of people thronging in. ‘I must show her that I will be
minded, but I will make it pleasant to her, poor child,’ she thought.

And it could not have been otherwise than pleasant to her, but that she
was reflecting all this time that she was being punished while Mysie was
enjoying herself. Therefore she put the lid on her intellect, and was
inconceivably stupid.




CHAPTER VI. -- PERSECUTION



On Monday afternoon Dolores was sitting at the end of the long garden
walk, upon a green garden-bench, with a crocodile’s head and tail
roughly carved. The shouts of the others were audible in the distance
beyond the belt of trees. Aunt Lily had driven into the town to meet her
sisters, taking Fergus with her, whereas Dolores had never been out in
the carriage. There was partiality! Though, to be sure, Fergus was to
have a tooth out! Harry and Gillian were playing with the rest, and
she had been invited to join, but she had made answer that she hated
romping, and on being assured that no romping was necessary, she replied
that she only wanted to read in peace. She had refused the “Thorn
Fortress,” which she was told would explain the game, and had hunted out
“Clare, or No Home,” to compare her lot with that of the homeless one.

Certainly, she had not yet been sent to bed with a box on the ear
because a countess had shown symptoms of noticing her more than her
ugly, over-dressed cousin. But then Aunt Lily would not allow her to
walk down alone to the Casement Villas to see dear Constance, and would
let that farmer keep all those dreadful cows in the paddock, so that
even going escorted was a terror to her.

Nor had her handsome mourning been taken from her and old clothes of
her cousin substituted for it. No, but she had been cruelly pulled about
between Mrs. Halfpenny and the Silverton dressmaker with a mouthful of
pins; and Aunt Lily had insisted on her dress being trimmed with velvet,
instead of the jingling jet she preferred.

Did they intercept her letters? She had had one from her father, sent
from Falmouth, but only one from Maude Sefton in ten days! Moreover, she
had one from Constance in her apron pocket, arrived that very afternoon,
asking her to come down with Gillian on the Sundays, that the friends
might enjoy themselves together while the classes were going on; but she
made sure that all were so jealous of her friendship with Constance that
no consent would be given.

She did not hear or notice the whisperings in the laurels behind her--

‘Do you see that sulky old Croat, smoking his pipe under the tree?’

‘No, he is a Black Brunswicker.’

‘Nonsense, Willie; the Black Brunswickers weren’t till Bonaparte’s
time.’

‘I don’t care, he is anything black and nasty; here goes!’

‘Oh stop; don’t shoot. I believe he is only a vivandiere. Besides, it’s
treacherous--’

‘I tell you he is laying a train to blow up the tower. There!’

An arrow struck the bench beside Dolores, who, more angry than she had
ever been in her life, snatched it up, unheeding that it had no point
to speak of, rushed headlong in pursuit, while, with a tremendous shout,
Valetta and Wilfred flew before her to a waste overgrown place at the
end of the kitchen garden.

‘We’ve shot a Croat!’

‘No, a Black Brunswicker.’

‘Oh ah! They are coming--the enemy! Into the fortress! Bar the wolf’s
passage!’

And as Dolores struggled through the bushes, she saw the whole family
dashing into an outhouse, and the door slammed. She pushed against it,
but an unearthly compound of howls, yells, shouts and bangs replied.

‘Gillian! Harry, I say,’ she cried in great anger; ‘come out, I want to
speak to you.’

But her voice was lost in the war-whoops within, and the louder she
knocked, the louder grew the din, till she walked off, swelling with
grief and indignation. Mysie, after all her professions of friendship,
to use her in this way! And Harry and Gillian, who should have kept the
others within bounds!

Slowly she crossed the lawn, just as Lady Merrifield, the other two
aunts, and Fergus, all came out from the glass door of the drawing-room.
Aunt Jane, a trim little dark-eyed woman, looking at two and forty much
the same as she might have done at five and twenty; and Aunt Adeline,
pretty and delicately fair, with somewhat of the same grace as Lady
Merrifield, but more languor, and an air as if everything about her were
for effect. Though not specially fond of theses aunts, Dolores was glad
to have them as witnesses of her ill-usage.

‘There stands Dolly, like a statue of Diana, dart in hand,’ exclaimed
Aunt Adeline.

‘Yes,’ said Dolores; ‘I wish to know, Aunt Lilias, if Wilfred and
Valetta are to call me names, and shoot arrows at me?’

‘What do you mean, my dear?’

‘They came at me while I was sitting quietly reading--there--and shot at
me, and called me such horrid names I can’t repeat them, and ran away.
Then the others, Gillian and Harry and all, would not listen to me, but
shut themselves up in an out-house and shouted at me.’

‘I think there must be some mistake, Dolores,’ said her aunt. ‘Where are
they?’

‘Out beyond there,’ said Dolores, pointing in the direction in which
Fergus was running.

Lady Merrifield set off with her, and the other two ladies followed more
slowly.

‘I thought it would not do,’ said Aunt Jane.

‘Lily’s children are so rough,’ added Aunt Adeline.

‘I am not so sure that the fault is theirs,’ was the reply. ‘She is a
priggish little puss, who wants shaking up.’

‘Ah! here come the hordes,’ sighed Adeline, shrinking a little, as the
entire population, summoned by Fergus, came pouring forth to meet the
advancing mother.

‘How is this, Wilfred? Have you been shooting arrows at your cousin?’

‘Mama!’ cried Valetta, indignantly, ‘he did not shoot at her; he only
pretended, and shot the old crocodile-bench. He never meant any more. It
was only play.’

‘Have you not been forbidden to shoot in the direction of any person?’

‘Nor I didn’t!’ said Wilfred. ‘I only shot the crocodile. I never tried
to hit her. She is quite big enough to miss.’

‘And she did look such a nice Croat, mamma,’ added Valetta. ‘We were
scouts out of the Thorn Fortress, Willie and I, and it was such a jolly
dodge to steal upon one of the enemy.’

‘You should have warned her.’

Then it would not have been a surprise,’ said Val, seriously.

‘Was she not at play with you?’

‘No, mamma,’ said Mysie. ‘We asked her, and she would not. I say,’
pausing in consternation, ‘Dolores, was it you that came and called at
the door of the Wolf’s passage?’

‘Of course. I wanted to show Gillian how Wilfred behaved to me.’

I thought it was Fergus come home to be the enemy.’

‘Didn’t you know her voice?’ asked the mother

‘We were all making such a noise ourselves in the dark,’ said Gillian,
‘that there was no hearing any one; and Primrose was rather frightened,
so that Hal was attending to her. Indeed, Dolores, I am very sorry. If
we had guessed that it was you, we would have opened the door at once,
and then you would have known that it was all fun and play, and not have
troubled mamma about it.’

‘Wilfred and Valetta knew,’ said Dolores, rather sullenly.

‘Oh! but it was such fun,’ said Val.

‘It was fun that became unkindness on your part,’ said her mother. ‘You
ought not to have kept it up without warning to her. And what do I hear
about names? I hope that was also misunderstanding of the game. What did
you call her?’

‘Only a Croat,’ said Valetta, indignantly, ‘and a Black Brunswicker.’

‘Was that it, Dolores?’

‘Perhaps,’ she muttered, disconcerted by a laugh from her Aunt Jane.

‘I do not know what you took them for,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘but you
see some part of this trouble arose from a mistake on you part. Now,
Wilfred and Valetta, remember that is not right to force a person into
play against her will. And as to the shooting near, but not at her,
you both know perfectly well that it is forbidden. So give me your bow,
Wilfred. I shall keep it for a week, that you may remember obedience.’

Wilfred looked sullen, but obeyed. Dolores could not call her aunt
unjust, but as she look round, she met glances that made her think it
prudent to shelter herself among the elders. Aunt Jane asked what the
game was.

‘The Thorn Fortress,’ said Gillian. ‘It comes out of that delightful
S.P.C.K. book so called, where, in the ‘Thirty Years’ War,’ all the
people of a village took refuge from the soldiers in a field in the
middle of a forest guarded by a tremendous hedge of thorns. Val had
it for a birthday present, and the children have been acting it ever
since.’

‘It has quite put out the Desert Island passion, which used to be a
regular stage in these children’s lives. Every voyage we have taken,
somebody has come to ask whether there was any hope of being wrecked on
one.’

‘Fergus even asked when we crossed from Dublin,’ said Gillian.

‘He was put up to that, to keep up the tradition,’ observed Harry.

On reaching the house, the elders proceeded to five o’clock tea in
the drawing-room, the juniors to gouter in the dining-room. As Dolores
entered, she beheld a row of all her five younger cousins drawn
up looking at her as if she had committed high treason, and she was
instantly addressed--

‘Tell-take tit!’ began Valetta.

‘Sneak!’ cried Wilfred.

‘I will call her Croat!’ added Fergus.

‘Worse than Croat! Bashi Bazouk!’ exclaimed Valetta.

‘Worse than Crow!’ chimed in Primrose.

‘Oh, Dolores! How could you?’ said Mysie.

‘To get poor Willie punished!’ said Val.

Dolores stood her ground. ‘It was time to speak when it came to shooting
arrows at me.’

‘Hush! hush! Willie,’ cried Mysie. ‘I told you so. Now Dolores, listen.
Nobody ever tells of anybody when it is only being tiresome and they
don’t mean it, or there never would be any peace at all. That’s honour!
Do you see? One may go to Gill sometimes.’

‘One’s a sneak if one does,’ put in Wilfred; but Mysie, unheeding went
on--

‘And Gill can help without a fuss or going to mamma.’

‘Mamma always knows,’ said Val.

‘Mamma knows all about everything,’ said Mysie. ‘I think it’s nature;
ad if she does not always take notice at the time, she will have it out
sooner or later.’ Then resuming the thread of her discourse: ‘So you
see, Dolly, we have made up our minds that we will forgive you this
time, because you are an only child and don’t know what’s what, and
that’s some excuse. Only you mustn’t go on telling tales whenever an
evident happens.’

Dolores thought it was she who ought to forgive, but the force against
her was overpowering, though still she hesitated. ‘But if I promise not
to tell,’ she said, ‘how do I know what may be done to me?’

‘You might trust us,’ cried Mysie, with flashing eyes.

‘And I can tell you,’ added Wilfred, ‘that if you do tell, it will be
ever so much the worse for you--girl that you are.’

‘War to the knife! Cried Valetta, and everybody except Mysie joined in
the outcry. ‘War to the knife with traitors in the camp.’

Mysie managed to produce a pause, and again acted orator. ‘You see,
Dolores, if you did tell, it would not be possible for mamma or Gill to
be always looking after you, and I couldn’t do you much good--and if all
these three are set against you, and are horrid to you, and I couldn’t
do you much good--horrid to you, you’ll have no peace in your life; and,
after all, we only ask of you to give and take in a good-natured sort of
way, and not to be always making a fuss about everything you don’t like.
It is the only way, I assure you.’

Dolores saw the fates were against her, and said--

‘Very well.’

‘You promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we forgive you, and here’s the box of chocolate things Aunt Ada
brought. We’ll have a cigar all round and be friends. Smoke the pipe of
peace.’

Dolores afterwards thought how grand it would have been to have replied,
‘Dolores Mohun will never be intimidated;’ but the fact was that her
spirit did quail at the thought of the tortures which the two boys
might inflict on her if Mysie abandoned her to their mercy, and she was
relieved, as well as surprised to find that her offence was condoned,
and she was treated as if nothing had happened.

Meantime Aunt Jane was asking in the drawing-room, ‘How do you get on?’

‘Fairly well,’ was Lady Merrifield’s answer. ‘We shall work together in
time.’

‘What does Gill say?’ asked the aunt, rather mischievously.

‘Well,’ said the young lady, ‘I don’t think we get on at all, not even
poor Mysie, who works steadily on at her, gets snubbed a dozen times a
day, and never seems to feel it.’

I hoped her father would have sent her to school,’ said Aunt Adeline. ‘I
knew she would be troublesome. She has all her mother’s pride.’

‘The proudest people are those who have least to be proud of,’ said Aunt
Jane.

‘School would have hardened the crust and kept up the alienation,’ said
Lady Merrifield.

‘Perhaps not. It might teach her to value the holidays, and learn that
blood is thicker than water,’ said Miss Jane.

‘It is always in reserve,’ added Miss Adeline.

‘Yes, Maurice told her to send her if I grew tired of her, as he said,’
replied Lady Merrifield, ‘but of course I should not think of that
unless for very strong reasons.’

‘Oh, mamma!’ and Gillian remained with her mouth open.

‘Well?’ said Aunt Jane.

‘I meant to have told you mamma, but Mr. Leadbitter came in about the
G.F.S. and stopped me, and I have never seen you to speak to since.
Yesterday you know, I stayed from evensong to look after the little
ones, and you said Dolores might do as she pleased, so she stayed at
home. The children were looking at the book of Bible Pictures, and it
came out that Dolly knew nothing at all about Joshua and the walls of
Jericho, nor Gideon and the lamps in the pitchers, nor anything else.
Then, when I was surprised, she said that it was not the present system
to perplex children with the myths of ancient Jewish history.’

Gillian was speaking rapidly, in the growing consciousness that her
mother had rather have had this communication reserved for her private
ear--and her answer was, ‘Poor child!’

‘Just what I should expect!’ said Aunt Jane.

‘Probably it was jargon half understood, and repeated in defence of
her ignorance,’ said Lady Merrifield. ‘She is an odd mixture of defiant
loyalty and self-defence.’

‘What shall you do about this kind of talk?’ asked her sister.

‘One must hear it sooner or later,’ said Harry.

‘That is true,’ returned his mother, ‘but I suppose Fergus and Primrose
did not hear or understand.’

‘Oh no, mamma. I know they did not, for they were squabbling because
Primrose wanted to turn over before Fergus had done with Gideon.’

‘Then I don’t think there is any harm done. If it comes before Mysie or
Val I will talk to them, and I mean to take this poor child alone for a
little while each day in the week and try to get at her.’

‘There’s another thing,’ said Gillian. ‘Is she to go down with me always
to Casement Cottages on Sunday afternoons when I take the class?’

‘To teach or to learn?’ ironically exclaimed Aunt Jane.

‘Neither,’ said Gillian. ‘To chatter to Constance Hacket. They both
spoke to me about it yesterday before I went home, and I believe
Constance has written a note to her to ask her today! Fancy, that goose
told me my sweet cousin was a dear, and that we didn’t appreciate her.
Even Miss Hacket gave me quite a lecture on kindness and consideration
to an orphan stranger.’

‘Not uncalled for, perhaps,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘I hope you received it in
an edifying manner.’

‘Now, Aunt Jane! Well, I believe I said we were as kind as she would let
us be, especially Mysie.’

Lady Merrifield here made the move to conduct her sisters to their
rooms; Miss Mohun detained her when they had reached hers, and had left
Adeline to rest on her sofa. The two, though very unlike, had still the
habits of absolute confidential intimacy belonging to sisters next in
age.

‘Lily,’ said Miss Mohun, ‘Gillian spoke of a note. Did Maurice give you
any directions about this child’s correspondence?’

‘You know I did not see him. I was so much disappointed. I would give
anything to have talked her over with him.’

‘I am not sure that you would have gained much. I doubt whether he knows
much about her, poor fellow. But the letters?’

‘He wrote that she had been a good deal with Professor Sefton’s family,
and he thought they might like to keep up their intercourse.’

‘Nothing about Flinders? He ought to have warned you.’

‘No. Who is he?’

‘A half-brother--no, a step-brother to poor Mary. He was the son by a
former marriage of her father’s first wife, and has been always a
thorn in their sides. He is a low, dissipated kind of creature; writes
theatrical criticisms for third-rate papers, or something of that kind,
when he is at his best. I believe Mary was really fond of him, and
helped him more than Maurice could well bear, and since her death the
man has perfectly pestered him with appeals to her memory. I really
believe one reason he welcomed this post was to get out of his reach.’

‘You always know everything Jenny. Now how did you know this?’

‘I called once in the midst of an interview between him and Mary. And
afterwards I came on poor Maurice when he was really very much provoked,
and had it all out; ad since her death--well, I saw him get a begging
letter from the man, and he spoke of it again. I wish I had advised him
to warn you against the wretch.’

‘I don’t suppose he knows where the child is. He is no relation to her,
you say?’

‘None at all, happily. But on that occasion, when I was an uncomfortable
third, Maurice was very angry that she should have been allowed to call
him Uncle Alfred; and Mary screwed up her little mouth, and evidently
rather liked the aggravation to Mohun pride.’

‘Poor Maurice, so he had a skeleton! Well, I don’t see how it can hurt
us. The man probably knows nothing about us, and even if he could trace
the girl, he must know that she can do nothing for him.’

‘You had better keep an eye on her letters. He is quite capable of
asking for the poor child’s half sovereigns. I wish Maurice had given
you authority.’

‘Perhaps he spoke to her about it. At any rate, what he said of the
Seftons is quite sufficient to imply that there is no sanction to any
other correspondence.’

‘That is true. Really, Lily, I believe you are the most likely person
to do some good with her, though I don’t think you know what you are in
for. But Gillian does!’

‘I believe it is very good for the children to have to exercise a little
forbearance. In spite of all our knocking about the world, our family
exclusiveness is pretty much what ours was in the old Beechcroft days--’

‘When Rotherwood and Robert Mohun were out only outsiders and the
Westons came on us like new revelations!’

‘It is curious to look back on,’ said Lady Merrifield. ‘It seems to me
that the system, or no system, on which we were brought up was rather
passing away even then.’

‘Specks we growed,’ said Jane. ‘What do you call the system?’

‘Just that people thought it their own business to bring up their
children themselves, and let the actual technical teaching depend upon
opportunities, whereas now they get them taught, but let the bringing up
take it chance.’

‘People lived with their children then--yes, I see what you mean, Lily.
Poor Eleanor, intending with all her might to be a mother to us, brought
us up, as you call it, with all her powers; but public opinion would
never have suffered us to get merely the odd sort of teaching that she
could give us. It was regular, or course; but oh! do you remember the
old atlas, with Germany divided into circles, and everything as it was
before the Congress of Vienna?’

‘You liked geography; I hated it.’

‘Yes, I was young enough to come in for the elder boys’ old school
atlases, which had some sense in them. It seems to me that we had more
the spirit of working for ourselves according to our individual tastes
than people have now. We learnt, they are taught.’

‘Well! and what did we learn?’

‘As much as we could carry,’ said Aunt Jane, laughing. ‘Assimilate, if
you like it better; and I doubt if people will turn out to have done
more now. What becomes of all the German that is crammed down girl’s
throats, whether they have a turn for languages or not? Do they ever
read a German book? Now you learnt it for love of Fouque and Max
Piccolomini, and you have kept it up ever since.’

‘Yes, by cramming it down my children’s throats. But what I complain of,
Jane, in the young folk that come across me is not over-knowledge, but
want of knowledge--want of general culture. This Dolores, for instance,
can do what she has been taught better than Mysie, some tings better
than Gillian, but she has absolutely no interest in general knowledge,
not even in the glaciers which she has seen; she does not know whether
Homer wrote in Greek or Latin, considers “Marmion” a lesson, cannot tell
a planet from a star, and neither knows nor cares anything about the two
Napoleons. Now we seem to have breathed in such things. Why! I remember
being made into Astyanax for a very unwilling Andromache (poor Eleanor)
for caress, and being told to shudder at the bright copper coal-scuttle,
before Harry went to school.’

‘Of course poor Maurice could not cultivate his child. Yet, after all,
we grew up without a mother; but then the dear old Baron lived among us,
and knew what we were doing, instead of shutting us up in a schoolroom
with some one, with only knowledge, not culture. Those very late dinners
have quite upset all the intelligent intercourse between fathers and
children not come out.’

‘Yes, Jasper and I have felt that difficulty. But after all, Jenny, when
I look back, I cannot say I think ours was a model bringing up. What a
strange year that was after Eleanor’s marriage!’

‘Ah! you felt responsible and were too young for it, but to me it was a
very jolly time, though I suppose I was an ingredient in your troubles.
Yes, we brought ourselves up; but I maintain that it was better
alternative than being drilled so hard as never to think of anything but
arrant idling out of lesson-time.’

‘Lessons should be lessons, and play, play, is one of the professor’s
maxims to which that poor child has treated us.’

‘Ah! on that system, where would have been all your grand heraldic
pedigrees? I’ve got them still.’

‘Oh! Jenny, you good old Brownie, have you? How I should like to look
at them again and show them the Gillian and Mysie. Do you remember the
little scalloped line we drew round all the true knights?’

‘Ay! and where would have been all your romancing about Sir Maurice de
Mohun, the pride of his name? For my part, I much prefer a cavalier
dead two hundred years ago as the object of a girl’s enthusiasm--if
enthusiasm she must have--to the existing lieutenant, or even curate.’

‘Certainly; I should be sorry to have been bred up to history with
individual interest and romance squeezed out of it. You see when Jasper
came home from the Crimea he exactly continued mine.’

‘You have fulfilled your ideal better than falls to the lot of most
people, even to the item of knighthood.’

‘Ah! you should have heard us grumble over the expense of it. And,
after all, I dare say Sir Maurice found his knight’s fee quite as
inconvenient! Oh!’ with a start, ‘there’s the first bell, and here have
I been dawdling here instead of minding my business! But it is so nice
to have you! I day, Jenny, we will have one of our good old games at
threadpaper verses and all the rest tonight. I want you to show the
children how we used to play at them.’

And the party played at paper games for nearly two hours that evening,
to the extreme delight of Gillian, Mysie, and Harry, to say nothing
of their mother and aunts, who played with all their might, even Aunt
Adeline lighting up into droll, quiet humour. Only Dolores was
first bewildered, then believed herself affronted, and soon gave up
altogether, wondering that grown-up people could be so foolish.




CHAPTER VII. -- G.F.S.



The first thought of Dolores was that she should see Constance Hacket,
when she heard ‘Hurrah for a holiday!’ resounding over the house.

As she came out of her room Mysie met her. ‘Hurrah! Aunt Jane has got us
a holiday that we may help get ready for the G.F.S.! Mamma has sent down
notes to Miss Vincent and Mr. Pollock. Oh! jolly, jolly!’

And, obvious of past offences, Mysie caught her cousin’s arms, and
whirled her round and round in an exulting dance, extremely unpleasant
to so quiet a personage. ‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘You hurt! You make me
dizzy!’

‘My certie, Miss Mysie!’ exclaimed Mrs. Halfpenny at the same time,
‘ye’re daft! Gae doon canny, and keep your apron on, for if I see a
stain on that clean dress--’

Mysie hopped downstairs without waiting to hear the terrible
consequences.’

Aunt Adeline did not come down to breakfast, but Aunt Jane appeared,
fresh and glowing, just in time for prayers, having been with Gillian
and Harry to survey the scene of operations, and to judge of the day,
which threatened showers, the grass being dank and sparkling with
something more than September dews.

‘The tables must be in the coach-house,’ said Lady Merrifield. ‘Happily,
our equipages are not on a large scale, and we must not get the poor
girls’ best things drenched.’

‘No; and it is rather disheartening to have to address double ranks of
umbrellas,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘Is the post come?’

‘It is always infamously late here,’ said Harry. ‘We complained, as the
appointed hour is eight, but we were told ‘all the other ladies were
satisfied.’ I do believe they think no one not in business has a right
to wish for letters before nine.’

‘Here it comes, though,’ said Gillian; and in due time the locked
letter-bag was delivered to Lady Merrifield, and Primrose waited eagerly
to act as postman.

It was not the day for the Indian mail, but Aunt Jane expected some last
directions, and Lady Merrifield the final intelligence as to the numbers
of each contingent of girls. Dolores was on the qui vive for a letter
from Maude Sefton, and devoured her aunt and the bag with her eyes. She
was quite sure that among the bundle of post-cards that were taken out
there was a letter. Also she saw her aunt give a little start, and
put it aside, and when she demanded. ‘Is there no letter for me?’ Lady
Merrifield’s answer was,’ None, my dear, from Miss Sefton.’

Hot indignation glowed in Dolores’s cheeks and eyes, more especially as
she perceived a look pass between the two aunts. She sat swelling while
talk about the chances of rain was passing round her, the forecasts in
the paper, the cats washing their faces, the swallows flying low, the
upshot being that it might be fine, but that emergencies were to be
prepared for. All the time that Lady Merrifield was giving orders to
children and servants for the preparations, Dolores kept her station,
and the instant there was a vacant moment, she said fiercely--

‘Aunt Lilias, I know there is a letter for me. Let me have it.’

‘Your father told me you might have letter from Miss Sefton, and there
is none from her,’ said Lady Merrifield, with a somewhat perplexed air.

‘I may have letters from whom I choose.’

‘My dear, that is not the custom in general with girls of your age, and
I know your father would not wish it. Tell me, is there any one you have
reason to expect to hear from?’

Dolores had an instinct that all the Mohuns were set against the person
she was thinking of, but she had an answer ready, true, but which would
serve her purpose.

‘There was a person, Herr Muhlwausser, that father ordered some
scientific plates from--of microscopic zoophytes. He said he did not
know whether anything would come of it, but, in case it should, he gave
my address, and left me a cheque to pay him with. I have it in my desk
upstairs.’

‘Very well, my dear,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘you shall have the letter
when it comes.’

‘The men are come, my lady, to put up the tables. Miss Mohun says will
you come down?’ came the information at that moment, sweeping away Aunt
Lilias and everybody else into the whirl of preparation; while Dolores
remained, feeling absolutely certain that a letter was being
withheld from her, and she stood on the garden steps burning with hot
indignation, when Mysie, armed with the key of the linen-press, flashed
past her breathlessly, exclaiming--

‘Aren’t you coming down, Dolly? ‘Tis such fun! I’m come for some
table-cloths.’

This didn’t stir Dolores, but presently Mysie returned again, followed
by Mrs. Halfpenny, grumbling that ‘A’ the bonnie napery that she had
packed and carried sae mony miles by sea and land should be waured on
a wheen silly feckless taupies that ‘tis the leddies’ wull to cocker up
till not a lass of ‘em will do a stroke of wark, nor gie a ceevil answer
to her elders.’

Mysie, with a bundle of damask cloths under her arm, paused to repeat,
‘Are you not coming Dolly? Your dear Miss Constance is there looking for
you?’

This did move Dolores, and she followed to the coach-house, where
everybody was buzzing about like bees, the tables and forms being
arranged, and upon them dishes with piles of fruit and cakes,
contributions from other associates. All the vases, great and small,
were brought out, and raids were made on the flower garden to fill them.
Little scarlet flags, with the name of each parish in white, were placed
to direct the parties of guests to their places, and Harry, Macrae, and
the little groom were adorning the beams with festoons. The men from
the coffee-tavern supplied the essentials, but the ladies undertook the
decoration, and Aunt Adeline, in a basket-chair, with her feet on a
box, directed the ornamentation with great taste and ability. Constance
Hacket had been told off to make up a little bouquet to lay beside each
plate, and Dolores volunteered to help her.

‘Well, dearest, will you come to me on Sunday?’

‘I don’t know. I have not been able to ask Aunt Lilias yet, and Gillian
was very cross about it.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said she did not think Aunt Lilias approved of visiting and
gossiping on Sunday.’

‘Oh! now. What does Gillian do herself?’ said Constance in a hurt voice.
‘She does come and teach, certainly, but she stays ever so long talking
after the class is over. Why should we gossip more than she does?’

‘Yes; but people’s own children can do no wrong.’

There Constance became inattentive. Mr. Poulter had come up, and wanted
to be useful, so she jumped up with a handful of nosegays to instruct
him in laying them by each plate, leaving Dolores to herself, which
she found dull. The other two, however, came back again, and the work
continued, but the talk was entirely between the gentleman and lady,
chiefly about music for the choral society, and the voices of the
singers, about which Dolores neither knew nor cared.

By one o’clock the long tables were a pretty sight, covered with piles
of fruit and cakes, vases of flowers and little flags, establishments of
teacups at intervals, and a bouquet and pretty card at every one of the
plates.

Then came early dinner at the house, and such rest as could be had after
it, till the pony-chaise, waggonette, and Mrs. Blackburne’s carriage
came to the door to convey to church all whom they could carry, the rest
walking.

The church was a sea of neat round hats, mostly black, with a
considerable proportion of feathers, tufts, and flowers. On their dark
dresses were pinned rosettes of different-coloured ribbon, to show to
which parish they belonged. There was a bright, short service, in which
the clear, high voices of the multitudinous maidens quite overcame
those of the choir boys, and then an address, respecting which Constance
pronounced that ‘Canon Fremont was always so sweet,’ and Dolores
assented, without in the least knowing what it had been about.

Constance, who had driven down, was to have kept guard, in the walk from
church, over the white-rosed Silverton detachment; but another shower
was impending, and Miss Hacket, declaring that Conny must not get wet,
rushed up and packed her into the waggonette, where Dolores was climbing
after, when at a touch from Gillian, Lady Merrifield looked round.

‘Dolores,’ she said, ‘you forget that Miss Hacket walked to church.’

Dolores turned on the step, her face looking as black as thunder, and
Miss Hacket protested that she was not tired, and could not leave her
girls.

‘Never mind the girls, I will look after them; I meant to walk. Don’t
stand on the step. Come down,’ she added sharply, but not in time, for
the horses gave a jerk, and, with a scream from Constance, down tumbled
Dolores, or would have tumbled, but that she was caught between her
aunt and Miss Hacket, who with one voice admonished her never to do
that again, for there was nothing more dangerous. Indeed, there was more
anger in Lady Merrifield’s tone than her niece had yet heard, and as
there was no making out that there was the least injury to the girl, she
was forced to walk home, in spite of all Miss Hacket’s protestations
and refusals, which had nearly ended in her exposing herself to the same
peril as Dolores, only that Lady Merrifield fairly pushed her in and
shut the door on her. Nothing would have compensated to Dolores but that
her Constance should have jumped out to accompany her and bewail her
aunt’s cruelty, but devotion did not reach to such an extent. Her aunt,
however, said in a tone that might be either apology or reproof--

‘My dear, I could not let poor Miss Hacket walk after all she has done
and with all she has to do today.’

Dolores vouchsafed no answer, but Aunt Jane said--

‘All which applies doubly to you, Lily.’

‘Not a bit; I am not run about like all of you,’ she answered, brightly.
‘Besides, it is such fun! I feel like Whit Monday at Beechcroft! Don’t
you remember the pink and blue glazed calico banners crowned with summer
snowballs? And the big drum? What a nice-looking set of girls! How
pleasant to see rosy, English faces tidily got up! They were rosy enough
in Ireland, but a great deal too picturesque. Now these are a sort of
flower of maidenhood--’

‘You are getting quite poetical, Lily.’

‘It’s the effect of walking in procession--there’s something quite
exhilarating in it; ay, and of having a bit of old Beechcroft about me.
Do tell me who that lady is; I ought to know her, I’m sure! Oh, Miss
Smith, good morning. How many girls have you brought? Oh! the crimson
rosettes, are they? York and Lancaster?--indeed. I’m glad we have
some shelter for them; I’m afraid there is another shower. Have you no
umbrella, my dear? Come under mine.’

It was a fierce scud of hail, hitting rather than wetting, but Dolores
had the satisfaction of declaring the edges of her dress to be damp and
going off to change it, though Aunt Jane pinched the kilting and said
the damp was imperceptible, and Wilfred muttered, ‘Made of sugar, only
not so sweet.’

In fact, she hoped that Constance, who had told of her hatred to these
great functions and willingness to do anything to avoid them, would
avail herself of the excuse; but though the young lady must have seen
her go, she never attempted to follow; and Dolores, feeling her own room
dull, came down again to find the drawing-room empty, and on the next
gleam of sunshine, she decided on going to seek her friend.

What a hum and buzz pervaded the stable-yard! There was a coach-house
with all its great doors open, and the rows of girls awakening from
their first shy and hungry silence into laughter and talking. There
were big urns and fountains steaming, active hands filling cups, all
the cousins, all their congeners, and four or five clergymen acting
as waiters, Aunt Adeline pouring out tea a the upper table for any
associate who had time to swallow it, and Constance Hacket talking away
to a sandy-haired curate, without so much as seeing her friend! Only
Wilfred, at sight of his cousin again, getting up a violent mock cough,
declaring that he thought she had gone to bed with congealed lungs or
else Brown Titus, as the old women called it. His mother, however, heard
the cough--which, indeed, was too remarkable a sound not to attract any
one--and with a short, sharp word to him to take care, she put Dolores
down under Aunt Ada’s wing, and provided her with a lovely peach and a
delicious Bath bun. Constance just looked up and nodded, saying, ‘You
dear little thing, I couldn’t think what was become of you,’ and then
went on with her sandy curate, about--what was it?--Dolores know not,
only that it seemed very interesting, and she was left out of it.

Down came the rain, a hopeless downpour, and there was a consultation
among the elders, some laughing, some doubtful looks, and at last Harry,
with Macrae and one of the curates, disappeared. Then grace was sung,
and speeches followed--one by the rector, Mr. Leadbitter, fatherly and
prosy;--a paper read by the Branch Secretary, about affairs in general;
and a very amusing speech by Miss Mohun, full of anecdotes of example
and warning. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘all the school story-books end--when
the grown up books marry their people--with the good girl going out to
service under her young lady, and there she lives happy ever after! But
some of us know better! We don’t know how far the marrying ones always
do live very happy ever after--’

‘For shame, Jenny!’ muttered Lady Merrifield.

‘But,’ went on Miss Mohun, ‘even you that have been lucky enough to get
under your own young ladies know that life here is all new beginnings at
the bottom, just as when you were very proud of yourselves for getting
out of the infant school, you found it was only being at the bottom
of the upper one; and I can tell the twelve-year-olds--I see some of
them--that it is often a finer thing to be at the head of the school
than the last in the house. Ay, you’ve got to work up there again, and
it is a long business and a steady business, but it is to be done. I
knew a girl, thirty-five years ago, that my sister-in-law took from
school, and she was not a genius either, and I am quite sure she could
not do rule-of-three, nor tell what is the capital of Dahomey, as I dare
say every one here can do, but I’ll tell you what she did, and that was,
her best, and there she has been ever since; and the last time I saw
her was sitting up in her housekeeper’s room, in her silk gown, with her
master’s grandchildren hanging about her, respected and loved by us all.
And I knew another, a much clever girl at school, with prettier ways to
begin with, but--I’m sorry to say, her finger were too clever, and it
was not very happy ever after, though she did right herself.’ And
then Aunt Jane went on to the difficulties of having to deal with
such quantities of pots and pans, and knives and forks, and cloths and
brushes, each with a use of its very own, just as if she had been a
scullery-maid herself; telling how sense and memory must be brought to
bear on these things just as much as in analyzing a sentence, and how
even those would not do without the higher motive of faithfulness to
Him whose servants we all are. Her finish was a picture of the roving
servant girl, always saying, ‘I don’t like it,’ and always seeking
novelty, illustrated by her experience of a little maid who left one
place because she could not sleep alone, and another because the little
girl slept with her, a third because it was so lonesome, and a fourth
because it was so noisy, and quitted her fifth within a half year
because she could not eat twice cooked meat.

Aunt Jane varied her voice in the most comical way, and the girls, as
well as all her audience, laughed heartily.

‘Bravo, Jenny!’ said a voice close to her, and a gentleman with a rather
bald head, a fluffy, light beard touched with white, dancing eyes, and a
slim, youthful figure, was seen standing in the group.

Lady Merrifield and her sisters cried with one glad voice, ‘Oh!
Rotherwood!’ holding out their hands.

‘Yes. I found I’d a few hours between the trains, so I ran down to look
you up. I met Harry at the house, and he told me I should find Jane
qualifying for the female parliament.’

‘It’s such a pity you should fall on all this turmoil,’ said Aunt Ada.

‘Pity! I wouldn’t have missed Jenny’s wisdom for the world. What is it,
Lily? Temperance, or have you set up a Salvation Army?

‘G.F.S., of course, you Rotherwood of old! And now you are come, you
shall save me from what has been my bugbear for the last week. You shall
give the premiums.’

‘Come, it’s no use making faces and pretending you know nothing about
it,’ added Miss Mohun. ‘I know very well that Florence is deep in it!’

‘Ay, they’ll have you over to repeat that splendid harangue about pots
and pans!’ said he, bowing at Lady Merrifield’s introductions of him to
the bystanders, and obediently accepting the sheaf of envelopes, while
Mr. Leadbitter made it known that the premiums would be given by the
Marquess of Rotherwood. Certainly it was a much more lively business
than if Lady Merrifield had performed it, for he had something droll
to observe to each girl. One he pretended to envy, telling her he
had worked hard for may a year, and never got such a card as that for
it--far less five shillings. Another he was sure kept her pans bright,
and always knew which was which; a very little one was asked if she had
gone from her cradle, and so on, always sending them away with a broad
smile, and professing great respect for the three seven-year-card
maidens who came up last. Then in a concluding speech he demanded--where
were the premiums for the mistresses, who, he was quite sure, deserved
them quite as much or more than the maids!

While everybody was still laughing, Lady Merrifield asked Mr. Leadbitter
to explain that as it was still raining hard, she must ask all to
adjourn to the great loft over the stable, where they could enjoy
themselves. Each associate was to gather her own flock and bring them
in order. Lady Merrifield said she would lead the way, Lord Rotherwood
coming with her, picking up little Primrose in his arms to carry her
upstairs to the loft.

Every one was moving. Dolores was among a crowd of strangers. She
heard them saying how delightful Lord Rotherwood was, and charming
and handsome and graceful Lady Merrifield, with her beautiful eyes. It
worried Dolores, who thought it rather foolish to be pretty, except in
the case of persecuted orphan, and, moreover, admiration of her
aunt always seemed to her disparagement of her mother. And where was
Constance?

She followed the stream, and, climbing some stairs, came out into
a large, long, empty hay-loft, over what had once been hunting
stables--the children’s wet-day play-place. The deputation dispatched to
the house had managed to get up there the schoolroom piano, and one of
the curates sat down to it, and began playing dance music, while Miss
Mohun, Miss Hacket, and the other ladies began arranging couples for a
country dance--all girls, of course, except that Lord Rotherwood danced
with the tiny premium girl, and Harry with Primrose. Wilfred and Fergus
could not be incited to make the attempt; Mysie offered herself to
Dolores, but in vain. ‘I hate dancing,’ was all the answer she got,
and she went off to persuade Lois, the nursery girl. Constance Hacket
arranged herself on a chair, and looked out from between two curates;
there was no getting at her.

Then there came a pause; Lord Rotherwood spoke to Gillian, and must have
asked her to point Dolores out, for presently he made his way to the
little dark figure in the window, and, kindly laying his hand on her
shoulder, asked whether she had heard from her father yet.

‘No, I suppose you can’t,’ he added. ‘It is a great break-up for you;
but you are a lucky girl to be taken in here! It reminds me of what
Beechcroft used to be to me when I was a stray fish, though not quite so
lonely as you are. Make the most of it, for there aren’t many in these
days like Aunt Lily there!’

‘He little knows,’ thought Dolores, as a waltz began to be played.

‘They want an example,’ he said. ‘Come along. You know how, I’m sure--a
Londoner like you!’

Pairs were whirling about the floor in full career in a short time, to
the astonishment of other maidens who had never seen dancing in their
lives. Dolores, afraid to refuse, and certainly flattered, really was
wonderfully exhilarated and brightened by her career wither good-natured
cousin.

‘I do believe Cousin Rotherwood has shaken her out of the dumps,’
observed Gillian to Aunt Jane, who returned--

‘He can do it if any one can.’

The funny thing was the effect upon Constance, who, in the next pause,
shook off her curates, advanced to Dolores, who was recovering her
breath under the window, called her a dear thing whom she had not been
able to get to all this time, sat rather forward with an arm round
her waist for the next half-hour, and, when Sir Roger de Coverley was
getting up, proposed that they should be partners, but not till she had
seen Lord Rotherwood pair himself off with Mysie.

‘I must,’ said he to Lady Merrifield, ‘it’s so like dancing with honest
Phyl.’

‘The greatest compliment you could have, Mysie,’ said her mother,
looking very much pleased.

The last yellow patches of evening sunshine on the sloping roof faded;
watches were looked at, the music turned to the National Anthem,
everybody stood up, or stood still, and sung it. Then at the close, Mr.
Leadbitter stood by the piano and said--

‘One word more, my young friends. Some of you may have been surprised at
this evening’s amusement, but we want you to understand that there is
no harm in dancing itself, provided that the place, the manner, and
the companions are fit. I hope that you will all prove the truth of my
words, by not taking this pleasant evening as an excuse for running
into places of temptation. Now, good night, with many thanks to Lady
Merrifield for the happy day she has given us.’

A voice added, ‘Three cheers for Lady Merrifield!’ and the G.F.S. showed
itself by no means backward in the matter of cheering. There was a
hunting up of ulsters and umbrellas; one associate after another got her
flock together, and clattered downstairs, either to get into vans, to
walk to the station, or to disperse to their homes in the town.

Meantime Lord Rotherwood had time to explain that he was on his way
to fetch his wife home from some German baths, where she had gone to
recruit after the season; and, as he meant to cross at night, had come
to spend a few hours with his cousin. There was still an hour to spare,
during which Lady Merrifield insisted that he must have more solid food
than G.F.S. provided.

‘Lily,’ said Miss Mohun, as the elders walked to the house together, ‘it
strikes me that Rotherwood could satisfy your mind about that letter. He
would know the handwriting. You remember a certain brother--very much in
law--of Maurice’s?’

‘I have reason to do so,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘You don’t mean that he
has been troubling Lily?’

‘No; but from the nature of the animal it is much to be apprehended that
he will,’ said Miss Mohun, ‘if he knows that the child is here.’

‘In fact,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘Jane has made me suppress, till
examination, a letter to her, in case it should be from him. It is a
horrid thing to do. What do you think, Rotherwood?’

‘There should be no correspondence. Did not Maurice warn you? Then
he ought. Look here, Lily. His wife--under strong compulsion from the
fellow, I should think--begged me to find some employment for him. I got
him a secretaryship to our Board of--what d’ye call it? I’ll do Maurice
the justice to say that he was considerably cool about it; but the end
of it was that there was an unaccountable deficit, and my lady said it
served me right. I was a fool, as I always am, and gave way to the poor
woman about not bringing it home to him. And she insisted on making
it up to me by degrees--out of her literary work, I fancy--for I don’t
think Maurice knew the extent of the peculation. Ever since I’ve been
getting begging letters from the fellow at intervals. If he had the
impertinence to molest you, Lily, simply refer him to me.’

‘And if he writes to the child?’

‘Return him the letter. Say she can have no such thing without her
father’s consent.’

‘Is this a case in point?’ said Lady Merrifield, producing the letter.

‘No,’ said he, holding it up in the waning light. ‘I know the fellow’s
fist too well! This is a gentleman’s hand.’

‘What a relief!’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘Nay, don’t be in a hurry,’ said Miss Mohun. ‘Don’t give it to her
unopened. Your only safety is in maintaining your right to see all the
child’s letters, except what her father specified.’

‘Don’t you wish it was you, Brownie?’ asked her cousin.

‘I hate it!’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘but I suppose I ought! However,
there’s no harm in this, that’s a comfort; it is simply that the
gentleman that the house is let to has found this note to her somewhere
about, and thinks she would wish to have it. I think it is her mother’s
hand. How nice of him!’

‘Now, Lily, don’t go and be too apologetic,’ said Jane. ‘Assert your
right, or you’ll have it all over again.’

‘Without Jenny to do prudence,’ said Lord Rotherwood, while Lady
Merrifield, hardly hearing either of them, hurried on in search of her
niece, but they would have been satisfied if they could have heard her.

‘My dear, here’s your letter. I am so sorry to have been too much
hindered to look at it before. You must not mind, Dolly. I know it is
very disagreeable; but every one who has the care of precious articles
like young ladies is bound to look after them.’

Dolores took the letter with a kind of acknowledgement, but no more,
for its detention offended her, and she was aggrieved at the prospect of
future inspection, as another cruel stroke inflicted upon her.

Aunt Adeline was found in the drawing-room, where she had entertained
such ladies as were afraid of the damp, or who did not approve of the
dancing, and would not look on at it. Thence all went off to a merry
meal, where the elders plunged into old stories, and went on capping
each others’ recollections and making fun, to the extreme delight of
the young folk, who had often been entertained with tales of Beechcroft.
Aunt Ada declared that she had not laughed so much for ten years, and
Aunt Jane declared that it was too bad to lower their dignity and be so
absurd before all these young things.

‘It’s having four of the old set together!’ said Lord Rotherwood; ‘a
chance one doesn’t get every day. I wonder how soon Maurice and Phyllis
will meet.’

‘It depends on whether the Zenobia touches at Auckland before going to
the Fijis,’ said Lady Merrifield.

‘There is at least a sort of neighbourhood between them,’ said Miss
Mohun, ‘though it may be about as close as between us and Sicily.’

‘She is looking out for Maurice,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘She wrote, only it was
too late, to propose his bringing Dolores to be at least nearer to him.’

‘Just like Phyllis!’ ejaculated the marquess. ‘You have one of your
flock with something of her countenance, Lily.’

‘I am so glad you see it, Rotherwood. It is what I am always trying
to believe in, and I hope the likeness is a little within as well as
without--but we poor creatures who have been tumbled about the world get
sophisticated, and can’t attain to the sweet, blundering freshness of
“Honest Simplicity.”’

‘It is a plant that must be spontaneous--can’t be grown to order.’

‘His lordship’s carriage at the door,’ announced Macrae.

‘Ah, well! Trains must be caught, I suppose. I’m glad you’re settled
here, Lilias. I feel as if a sort of reflex of old Beechcroft were
attainable now.’

‘I hope it won’t be a G.F.S. day next time you come!’

‘Oh, it was very jolly. I shall bring my child next time, if I can get
her out of the clutches of the governesses for a day, but it is a hard
matter. They look daggers at me if I put my head into the schoolroom.’

‘You always were a dangerous element there, you know.’

‘Poor dear Eleanor! What did I not make her go through! But she never
went the length of one of my lady’s governesses, who declared that
she had as much call to interfere in my stable, as I had with her
schoolroom.’

‘What mischief were you doing there?’

‘Well, if you must know, I was enlivening a very dry and Cromwellian
abridgement with some of Lily’s old cavalier anecdotes, so Lily was at
the bottom of it, you see.’

‘But did she fall on you then and there?’

‘No, no. I trust my beard is too grey for that. But she looked at me
with impressive dignity such as neither poor little Fly nor I could
stand, and afterwards betook herself to Victoria, who, I am happy to
say, sent her to the right about.’

‘As I am about to do,’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘for if you don’t miss
your train, it will be by cruelty to animals. No, you’ve not got time to
shake hands with all that rabble. Be off with you.’

‘Ah! I shall tell Victoria that if she sees me tomorrow it’s all owing
to your unpitying punctuality,’ said he, shaking himself into his
overcoat.

‘Dear old fellow!’ said Lady Merrifield, as she turned from the front
door, while he drove off. ‘He is like a gust of old Beechcroft air! But
I should think Victoria had a handful.’

‘She knew what she was doing,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘I always thought she
married him for the sake of breaking him in.’

‘And very well she has done it, too,’ returned Aunt Jane. ‘Only now and
then he gets a holiday, and then the real creature breaks out again.
But it is much better so. He would not have been of half so much good
otherwise.’

Lady Merrifield looked from one to the other, but said no more, for
all the young folks were round her; but every one was so much tired,
children, servants, and all, that prayers were read early, and all went
to their rooms. Yet, tired as she was, Lady Merrifield sat on in her
sister Jane’s room, in her dressing-gown, talking according to another
revival of olden time.

‘What did Ada mean about Rotherwood? Isn’t he happy?’

‘Oh yes, very happy; and it is much the best thing that could have
happened. It is only another of the proofs that life is very long,
especially for men.’

‘Come, now, tell me all about it. You don’t know how often I feel as if
I had been buried and dug up again.’

‘There are things one can’t write about. Poor fellow! he never really
wanted to marry anybody but Phyllis.’

‘No! you don’t mean it! I never knew it.’

‘No, for you were in the utmost parts of the earth; and he was very
good, so that I don’t believe honest Phyl herself, or any one without
eyes, guessed it; but he had it all out with our father, who begged him,
almost on that allegiance he had always shown, to abstain from beginning
about it. You see, not only are they first cousins, but our mother and
his father both were consumptive, and there was dear Claude even then
regularly breaking down every winter, and Ada needing to be looked after
like a hothouse plan. I’m sure, when I think of the last generation of
Devereuxes, I wonder so many of us have been tough enough to weather
the dangerous age; and there had been an alarm or two about Rotherwood
himself. Well, he was very good, half from obedience, half from being
convinced that it would be a selfish thing, and especially from being
wholly convinced that Phyl’s feelings were not stirred. That was the way
I came to know about it, for papa took me out for a drive in the old gig
to ask what I thought about her heart, and I could truly and honestly
say she had never found it, cared for Rotherwood just as she did for
Reggie, and was not the sort to think whether a man was attentive to
her. Besides, she was eighteen, and he thirty-one, and she thought him
venerable. I believe, if he had asked her then, she might have taken him
(because Cousin Rotherwood wished it), but she would have had to fall in
love in the second place instead of the first. Well, he was very good,
poor old fellow, except that by way of taking himself off, and diverting
his mind, he went dear-stalking with such unnecessary vehemence that a
Scotch mist was very nearly the death of him, and he discovered that he
had as many lungs as other people. If you could only have seen our dear
old father then, how distressed and how guilty he felt, and how he used
to watch Phyllis, and examine Alethea and me as to whether she seemed
more than reasonably concerned for Rotherwood had come and hit the right
nail on the head he might have carried her off.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘No; for, you see, he was ill enough to convince himself, as well as
other people, that he was a consumptive Devereux after all.’

‘Oh yes! I remember the shock with which I heard like a doom that he was
going the way of the others; and hen he and the dear Claude came out
in his yacht to us at Gibraltar, and were so bright! We had a wonderful
little journey into Spain together, and how Jasper enjoyed it! Little
did I think I was never to see Claude here again. But it was true,
was it not, that all Rotherwood’s care gave the dear fellow much more
comfort--perhaps kept him longer?’

‘I am sure it was so. Rotherwood soon got over his own attachment--the
missing an English winter was all he needed; but he would hear of
nothing but devoting himself to Claude. Papa and Claude were both uneasy
at his going off from all his cares and duties, but I believe--and
Claude knew it--that he actually could not settle down quietly while
Phyllis remained unmarried, and that having Claude to nurse and carry
about from climate was the comfort of his life. Or, I believe, dear
Claude would have been glad to have been left in peace to do what he
could. Well, then Phyllis and Ada went to stay in the Close with Emily,
and Ada wrote conscious letters and came home bridling and blushing
about Captain May, so that we were quite prepared for his turning up at
Beechcroft, but not at all for what I saw before he had been ten minutes
in the house, that it was Phyllis that he meant, and had meant all
along! Dear Harry! it almost made up for its not being Rotherwood. Well,
poor Ada! It hadn’t gone too deep, happily, and I opened her eyes in
time to hinder any demonstration that could have left pain and shame--at
least, I think so; but poor Ada has had too many little fits for one to
have told much more than another. I believe Phyl did tell Harry that
he meant Ada, but she let herself be convinced to the contrary; and
the only objection I have to it is his having taken that appointment
at Auckland, and carried her out of reach of any of us. However, it was
better for Rotherwood, and when she was gone, and his occupation over
with our dear Claude, his mother was always at him to let her see him
married before she died. And so he let her have her way. No, don’t look
concerned. Lady Rotherwood is an excellent, good woman, just the wife
for him, and he knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and
gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy.
But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis--Fly he calls
her. She is a little skittish elf--Rotherwood himself all over; and
doesn’t he worship her! and doesn’t he think it a holiday to carry her
off to play pranks with! and isn’t he happy to get amongst a good lot of
us, and be his old self again!’




CHAPTER VIII. -- MY PERSECUTED UNCLE



Dolores was allowed to go to Casement Cottage on Sunday. It was always
rather an awful thing to her to get through the paddock when the
farmer’s cattle turned out there. She did not mind it so much in the
broad road and in the midst of a large party, with Hal among them, and
no dogs; but alone with only one companion, and in the easy path which
was the shortest way to the cottage, she winced and trembled at the
little black, shaggy Scotch oxen, with white horns and faces that looked
to her very wild and fierce.

‘Oh, Gillian, those creatures! Can’t we go the other way?’

‘No; it is a great deal further round, and there’s no time. They won’t
hurt. The farmer engaged not to turn out anything vicious here.’

‘But how can he be sure?’

‘Well, don’t come if you don’t like it,’ said Gillian, impatiently. ‘It
is your own concern. I must go.’

Dolores did not like the notion of Constance being told that she would
not come because she was afraid of the oxen. She thought it very unkind
of Gillian, but she came, and kept carefully on the side furthest from
the formidable animals. And Gillian really was forbearing. She did make
allowances for the London-bred girl’s fears; and the only thing she did
was, that when one of the animals lifted up its head and looked, and
Dolores made a spring as if to run away, she caught the girl’s arm,
crying, ‘Don’t! That’s the very way to make him run after you.’

They got safe out of the paddock at last, and rang at the door. They
were both kissed, Dolores with especial affectionateness, because the
good ladies pitied her so much; and then while Miss Hacket and Gillian
went off to their class, Constance took Dolores up into her own room,
and began to tell her how disappointed she was not to have seen more of
her at the Festival.

‘But those curates would not let me alone. I was obliged to attend to
them.’

And then she was very eager to know all about Lord Rotherwood, which
rather amazed Dolores, who had been in the habit of hearing her father
mention him as ‘that mad fellow Rotherwood,’ while her mother always
spoke with contempt of people who ran after lords and ladies, and had
been heard to say that Lord Rotherwood himself was well enough, but his
wife was a mere fine lady.

But Dolores had a matter on which she was very anxious.

‘Connie, do they always read one’s letters first? I mean the old people,
like Aunt Lily.’

‘What! has she been reading your letters?’

‘She says she always shall, except father’s and Maude Sefton’s, because
papa spoke to her about that. She took a letter of mine the other day,
and never let me have it till the evening, and I am sure Aunt Jane put
her up to it.’

‘You poor darling!’ exclaimed Constance. ‘Was it anything you cared
about?’

‘Oh no--not that--but there might be. And I want to know whether she has
the right.’

‘I should not have thought Lady Merrifield would have been so like an
old schoolmistress. Miss Dormer always did, the old cat! where I went to
school,’ said Constance. ‘We did hate it so! She looked over every one’s
letters, except parents’, so that we never could have anything nice,
except by a chance or so.’

‘It is tyranny,’ said Dolores, solemnly. ‘I do not see why one should
submit to it.’

‘We had dodges,’ continued Constance, warming with the history of her
school-days, and far too eager to talk to think of the harm she might be
doing to the younger girl. ‘Sometimes, when a lot of us went to a shop
with one of the governesses, one would slip out and post a letter.
Fraulein was so short-sighted, she never guessed. We used to call her
the jolly old Kafer. But Mademoiselle was very sharp. She once caught
Alice Bell, so that she had to make an excuse and say she had dropped
something. You see, she really had--the letter into the slit.’

‘But that was an equivocation.’

‘Oh, you darling scrupulous, long-worded child! You aren’t like the
girls at Miss Dormer’s, only she drove us to it, you know. You’ll be
horribly shocked, but I’ll tell you what Louie Preston did. There was
a young man in the town whom she had met at a picnic in the holidays--a
clerk, he was, at the bank--and he used to put notes to her under the
cushions at church; but one unlucky Sunday, Louie had a cold and didn’t
go, and she told Mabel Blisset to bring it, and Mabel didn’t understand
the right place, and went poking about, so that Miss Dormer found it
out, and there was such a row!’

‘Wasn’t that rather vulgar?’ said Dolores.

‘Well, he was only a clerk, but he was a duck of a man, with regular
auburn hair, you know. And he sang! We used to go to the Choral Society
concerts, and he sang ballads so beautifully, and always looked at
Louie!’

‘I should not care for anything of that sort,’ said Dolores. ‘I think it
is bad form.’

‘So it is,’ said Constance, seriously, ‘only one can’t help recollecting
the fun of the thing, and what one was driven to in those days. Is there
any one you are anxious to correspond with?’

‘Not in particular, only I can’t bear to have Aunt Lilias meddling with
my letters; and there’s a poor uncle of mine that I know would not like
her, or any of the Mohuns, to see his letters.

‘Indeed! Your poor mamma’s brother?’ cried Constance, full of curiosity.

‘Mind, it is in confidence. You must never tell any one.’

‘Never. Oh, you may trust me!’ cried Constance.

‘Her half-brother,’ said Dolores; and the girl proceeded to tell
Constance what she had told Maude Sefton about Mr. Flinders, and how her
mother had been used to assist him out of her own earnings, and how he
had met her at Exeter station, and was so disappointed to have missed
her father. Constance listened most eagerly, greatly delighted to have a
secret confided to her, and promising to keep it with all her might.

‘And now,’ said Dolores, ‘what shall I do? If poor Uncle Alfred writes
to me, Aunt Lilias will have the letter and read it, and the Mohuns are
all so stuck up; they will despise him, and very likely she will never
let me have the letter.’

‘Yes, but, dear, couldn’t you write here, with my things, and tell him
how it is, and tell him to write under cover to me?’

‘Dear Connie! How good you are! Yes, that would be quite delightful!’

All the confidences and all the caresses had, however, taken quite as
long as the G.F.S. class, and before Constance had cleared a space on
the table for Dolores’s letter, there was a summons to say that Gillian
was ready to go home.

‘So early!’ said Constance. ‘I thought you would have had tea and stayed
to evening service.’

‘I should like it so much,’ cried Dolores, remembering that it would
spare her the black oxen in the cross-path, as well as giving her the
time with her friend.

So they went down with the invitation, but Gillian replied that mamma
always liked to have all together for the Catechism, and that she could
not venture to leave Dolores without special permission.

‘Quite right, my dear,’ said Miss Hacket. ‘Connie would be very sorry to
do anything against Lady Merrifield’s rules. We shall see you again in a
day or two.’

And this is the way in which Constance kept her friend’s secret. When
Miss Hacket had done her further work with a G.F.S. young woman who
needed private instruction to prepare her for baptism, the two sisters
sat down to a leisurely tea before starting for evensong; in the first
place, Constance detailed all she had discovered as to the connection
with Lord Rotherwood, in which subject, it must be confessed, good Miss
Hacket took a lively interest, having never so closely encountered a
live marquess, ‘and so affable,’ she contended; upon which Constance
declared that they were all stuck-up, and were very unkind and hard to
poor darling Dolores.

‘I don’t know. I cannot fancy dear Lady Merrifield being unkind to any
one, especially a dear girl as good as an orphan,’ said Miss Hacket,
who, if not the cleverest of women, was one of the best and most
warm-hearted. ‘And, indeed, Connie, I don’t think dear Gillian and Mysie
feel at all unkindly to their cousin.’

‘Ah! that’s just like you, Mary. You never see more than the outside,
but then I am in dear Dolly’s confidence.’

‘What do you mean, Connie?’ said Miss Hacket, eagerly.

Constance had come home from school with the reputation of being much
more accomplished than her elder sister, who had grown up while her
father was a curate of very straitened means, and thus, though her
junior, she was thought wonderfully superior in discernment and
everything else.

‘Well,’ said Constance, ‘what do you think of Lady Merrifield sending
her to bed for staying late here that morning?’

‘That was strict, certainly; but you know she sent Mysie too. It was all
my own thoughtlessness for detaining them,’ said the good elder sister.
‘I was so grieved!’

‘Yes,’ said Constance, ‘it sounds all very well to say Mysie was treated
in the same way, but in the afternoon Mysie was allowed to go and make
messes with blackberry jam, while poor Dolly was kept shut up in the
schoolroom!’

Constance did not like Lady Merrifield, who had unconsciously snubbed
some of her affectations, and nipped in the bud a flirtation with Harry,
besides calling off some of the curates to be helpful. But Miss Hacket
admired her neighbour as much as her sister would permit, and made
answer--

‘It is so hard to judge, my dear, without knowing all. Perhaps Mysie had
finished her lessons.’

‘Ah! I know you always are for Lady Merrifield! But what do you say,
then, to her prying into all that poor child’s correspondence?’

‘My dear, I think most people do think it advisable to have some check
on young girl’s letters. Perhaps Dolores’s father desired it.’

‘He never put on any restrictions,’ said Constance. ‘I am sure he
never would. Men don’t. It is always women, with their nasty, prying,
tyrannous instincts.’

‘I am sure,’ returned Mary, ‘one would not think a child like Dolores
Mohun could have anything to conceal.’

‘But she has!’ cried Constance.

‘No, my dear! Impossible!’ exclaimed Miss Hacket, looking very much
shocked. ‘Why, she can’t be fourteen!’

‘Oh! it is nothing of that sort. Don’t think about that, Mary.’

‘No, no, I know, Connie dear; you would never listen to any young girl’s
confidence of that kind--so improper and so vulgar,’ said Miss Hacket,
and Constance did not think it necessary to reveal her knowledge of the
post-office under the cushions at church, and other little affairs of
that sort.

‘It is her uncle,’ said Constance. ‘Her mother, it seems, though quite
a lady, was the daughter of a professor, a very learned man, very
distinguished, and all that, but not a high family enough to please
the Mohuns, and they never were friendly with her, or treated her as an
equal.’

‘That couldn’t have been Lady Merrifield,’ persevered Miss Hacket. ‘She
lamented to me herself that she had been out of England for so many
years that she had scarcely seen Mrs. Maurice Mohun.’

‘Well, there were the Miss Mohuns and all the rest!’ said Constance.
‘Why, Dolores has only once been at the family place. And her mother had
a brother, an author and a journalist, a very clever man, and the Mohuns
have always regularly persecuted him. He has been very unfortunate,
and Mrs. Maurice Mohun has done her utmost to help him, writing in
periodicals and giving the proceeds to him. Wasn’t that sweet? And now
Dolores feels quite cut off from him; and she is so fond of him, poor
darling for her mother’s sake.’

Tender-hearted as Miss Hacket was, she had seen enough of life to have
some inkling of what being very unfortunate might sometimes mean.

‘I should think,’ she said, ‘that Lady Merrifield would never withhold
from the child any letter it was proper she should have, especially from
a relation.’

‘Yes, but I tell you she did keep back a letter on the festival day till
she had looked at it. Poor Dolores saw it come, and she saw a glance
pass between her and Miss Mohun, and she is quite sure, she says, her
Aunt Jane had been poisoning her mind about this poor persecuted uncle,
and that she shall never be allowed to hear from him.’

‘I don’t suppose there can be much for him to say to her,’ said Miss
Hacket. Then, after a little reflection, ‘Connie, my dear, I really
think you had better not interfere. There may be reasons that this poor
child knows nothing about for keeping her aloof from this uncle.’

‘Oh! but her mother helped him.’

‘She was his sister. That was quite another thing. Indeed, Connie,’ said
Miss Hacket, more earnestly, ‘I am quite sure that you will use your
influence--and you have a great deal of influence, you know--most kindly
by persuading this dear child to be happy with the Merrifields and
submit to their arrangements.’

‘You are infatuated with Lady Merrifield,’ muttered Constance. ‘Ah! how
little you know!’

Here the first warning note of the bell ended the discussion, and
Constance did not think it necessary to tell her sister of the offer
she had made to Dolores. In her eyes, Mary, who was the eldest of the
family, had always been of the dull, grown-up, authoritative faction of
the elders, while she herself was still one of the sweet junior party,
full of antagonism to them, and ready to elude them in any way. Besides,
she had promised her darling Dolores; and the thing was quite romantic;
nor could any one call it blame-worthy, since it was nothing like a
lover--not even a young man, but only a persecuted uncle in distress.

So she awaited anxiously the next Sunday when Dolores’s letter was to
be written in her room. To tell the truth, Dolores could quite as easily
have written in her own, and brought down the letter in her pocket, if
she had been eager about the matter; but she was not, except under the
influence of making a grievance. She had never written to Uncle Alfred
in her life, nor he to her; and his visits to her mother had always led
to something uncomfortable. Nor would she have thought about the subject
at all if it had not been for the sore sense that she was cut off from
him, as she fancied, because he belonged to her mother.

Nothing particular had happened that week. There had been no very
striking offences one way or the other; she was working better with her
lessons and understanding more of Miss Vincent’s methods. She perceived
that they were thorough, and respected them accordingly, and she had had
the great satisfaction of getting more good marks for French and German
than Mysie. She had become interested in ‘The Old Oak Staircase,’ and
began to look forward to Aunt Lily’s readings as the best part of the
day. But she had not drawn in the least nearer to any of the family.
She absolutely disliked, almost hated, the quarter of an hour which Aunt
Lily devoted to her religious teaching every morning, though nobody was
present, not even Primrose. She nearly refused to learn, and said as
badly as possible the very small portions she was bidden to learn by
heart, and she closed her mind up against taking in the sense of the
very short readings and her aunt’s comments on them. It seemed to her
to be treating her like a Sunday-school child, and insulting her mother,
who had never troubled her in this manner. Her aunt said no word of
reproach, except to insist on attention and accuracy of repetition; but
there came to be an unusual gravity and gentleness about her in these
lessons, as if she were keeping a guard over herself, and often a
greatly disappointed look, which exasperated Dolores much more than a
scolding.

Mysie had left off courting her cousin, finding that it only brought
her rebuffs, and went her own way as before, pleased and honoured when
Gillian would consort with her, but generally paring with her younger
sister.

Dolores, though hitherto ungracious, missed her attentions, and decided
that they were ‘all falseness.’ Wilfred absolutely did tease and annoy
her whenever he could, Fergus imitated him, and Valetta enjoyed and
abetted him. These three had all been against her ever since the affair
of the arrow; but Wilfred had not many opportunities of tormenting her,
for in the house there was a perpetual quiet supervision and influence.
Mrs. Halfpenny was sure to detect traps in the passage, or bounces at
the door. Miss Vincent looked daggers if other people’s lesson books
were interfered with. Mamma had eyes all round, and nobody dared to
tease or play tricks in her presence. Hal, Gillian, and even Mysie
always thwarted such amiable acts as putting a dead wasp into a shoe,
or snapping a book in the reader’s face; while, as to venturing into
the general family active games, Dolores would have felt it like rushing
into a corobboree of savages!

There was one wet afternoon when they could not even get as far as to
the loft over the stables; at least the little ones could not have done
so, and it was decided that it would be very cruel to them for all the
others to run off, and leave them to Mrs. Halfpenny; so the plan was
given up.

Partly because Lady Merrifield thought it very amiable in Mysie and
Valetta to make the sacrifice, and partly to disperse the thundercloud
she saw gathering on Wilfred’s brow, she not only consented to a
magnificent and extraordinary game at wolves and bears all over the
house, but even devoted herself to keeping Mrs. Halfpenny quiet by
shutting herself into the nursery to look over all the wardrobes, and
decide what was to ‘go down’ in the family, and what was to be given
away, and what must be absolutely renewed. It was an operation that Mrs.
Halfpenny enjoyed so much, that it warranted her to be deaf to shrieks
and trampling, and almost to forget the chances of gathers and kilting
being torn out, and trap-doors appearing in skirts and pinafores.

All that time Dolores sat hunched up in her own room, reading ‘Clare,
or No Home,’ and realizing the persecutions suffered by that afflicted
child, who had just been nearly drowned in rescuing her wickedest
cousin, and was being carried into her noble grandfather’s house, there
to be recognized by her golden hair being exactly the colour it was when
she was a baby.

There were horrible growlings at times outside her door, and she
bolted it by way of precaution. Once there was a bounce against it, but
Gillian’s voice might be heard in the distance calling off the wolves.

Then came a lull. The wolves and bears had rushed up and down stairs
till they were quite exhausted and out of breath, especially as Primrose
had always been a cub, and gone in the arms of Hal or Gillian; Fergus
at last had rolled down three steps, and been caught by Wilfred, who,
in his character of bear, hugged and mauled him till his screams grew
violent. Harry had come to the rescue, and it was decided that there
had been enough of this, and that there should be a grand exhibition of
tableaux from the history of England in the dining-room, which of course
mamma was to guess, with the assistance of any one who was not required
to act.

Mama, ever obliging, hastily condemned two or three sunburnt hats and
ancient pairs of shoes, to be added to the bundle for Miss Hacket’s
distribution, and let herself be hauled off to act audience.

‘But where’s Dolly?’ she asked, as she looked at the assemblage on the
stairs.

‘Bolted into her room, like a donkey,’ said Wilfred, the last clause
under his breath.

‘Indeed, mamma, we did ask her, and gave her the choice between wolves
and bears,’ said Mysie.

‘Unfortunately she is bear without choosing,’ said Gill.

‘A sucking of her paws in a hollow tree,’ chimed in Hal.

‘Hush! hush!’ said Lady Merrifield, looking pained; ‘perhaps the choice
seemed very terrible to a poor only child like that. We, who had the
luck to be one of many, don’t know what wild cats you may all seem to
her.’

‘She never will play at anything,’ said Val.

‘She doesn’t know how to,’ said Mysie.

‘And won’t be taught,’ added Wilfred.

‘But that’s very dreadful,’ exclaimed Lady Merrifield. ‘Fancy a poor
child of thirteen not knowing how to play. I shall go and dig her out!’

So there came a gentle tap at the closed door, to which Dolores
answered--

‘Can’t you let me alone? Go away,’ thinking it a treacherous ruse of the
enemy to effect an entrance; but when her aunt said--

‘Is there anything the matter, my dear? Won’t you let me in?’ she was
obliged to open it.

‘No, there’s nothing the matter,’ she allowed. ‘Only I wanted them to
let me alone.’

‘They have not been rude to you, I hope.’

Dolores was too much afraid of Wilfred to mention the bouncing, so she
allowed that no one had been rude to her, but she hated romping, which
she managed to say in the tone of a rebuke to her aunt for suffering it.

However, Aunt Lily only smiled and said--

‘Ah! you have not been used to wholesome exercise in large families. I
dare say it seems formidable; but, my dear, you are looking quite pale.
I can’t allow you to stay stuffed up there, poking over a book all the
afternoon. It is very bad for you. We are going to have some historical
tableaux. They are to have one set, and I thought perhaps you and I
would get up some for them to guess in turn.’

Dolores was not in a mood to be pleased, but she did not quite dare to
say she did not choose to make herself ridiculous, and she knew there
was authority in the tone, so she followed and endured.

So they beheld Alfred watching the cakes before the bright grate in the
dining-room, and having his ears beautifully boxed. Also Knut and the
waves, which were graphically represented by letting the wind in under
the drugget, and pulling it up gradually over his feet, but these, Mysie
explained, were only for the little ones. Rollo and his substitute doing
homage to Charles the Simple, were much more effective; as Gillian in
that old military cloak of her father’s, which had seen as much service
in the play-room as in the field, stood and scowled at Wilfred in the
crown and mamma’s ermine mantle, being overthrown by Harry at his full
height.

The excitement was immense when it was announced that mamma had a
tableau to represent with the help of Dolores, who was really warming
a little to the interest of the thing, and did not at all dislike being
dressed up with one of the boy’s caps with three ostrich feathers, to
accompany her aunt in hood and cloak, and be challenged by Hal, who had,
together with the bow and papa’s old regimental sword, been borrowed to
personate the robber of Hexham. Everybody screamed with ecstasy except
Fergus, who thought it very hard that he should not have been Prince
Edward instead of a stupid girl.

So, to content all parties, mama undertook to bring in as many as
possible, and a series from the life of Elizabeth Woodville was
accordingly arranged.

She stood under the oak, represented by the hall chandelier, with Fergus
and Primrose as her infant sons, and fascinated King Edward on
the rocking-horse, which was much too vivant, for it reared as
perpendicularly as it could, and then nearly descended on its nose, to
mark the rider’s feelings.

Then, with her hair let down, which was stipulated for, though, as she
observed, nothing would make it the right colour, she sat desolate on
the hearth, surrounded by as many daughters as could be spared from
being spectators, as her youngest son was born off from her maternal
arms by a being as like a cardinal as a Galway cloak, disposed tippet
fashion, could make him.

She could not be spared to put up her hair again before she had to
forget her maternal feelings and be mere audience, while her two sons
were smothered by Mysie and Dolores, converted into murderers one
and two by slouched hats. Fergus, a little afraid of being actually
suffocated, began to struggle, setting off Wilfred, and the adventure
was having a conclusion, which would have accounted for the authentic
existence of Perkin Warbeck, when--oh horror! there was a peal at the
door-bell, and before there was a moment for the general scurry,
Herbert the button-boy popped out of the pantry passage and admitted
Mr. Leadbitter, to whom, as a late sixth standard boy, he had a special
allegiance, and, having spied him coming, hurried to let him in out of
the rain instantly.

At least, such was the charitable interpretation. Harry strongly
suspected that the imp had been a concealed spectator all the time, and
had particularly relished the mischief of the discomfiture, which, after
all, was much greater on the part of the Vicar than any one else, as
he was a rather stiff, old-fashioned gentleman. Lady Merrifield only
laughed, said she had been beguiled into wet day sports with the
children, begged him to excuse her for a moment or two, and tripped
away, followed by Gillian to help her, quickly reappearing in her lace
cap as the graceful matron, even before Mr. Leadbitter had quite done
blushing and quoting to Harry ‘desipere in loco,’ as he was assisted off
with his dripping, shiny waterproof.

After all no harm would have been done if--Harry and Gillian being
both off guard--Valetta had not exclaimed most unreasonably in her
disappointment--

‘I knew the fun would be spoilt the instant Dolores came in for it.’

‘Yes, Mr. Murderer, you squashed my little finger and all but smothered
me,’ cried Fergus, throwing himself on Dolores and dropping her down.

‘Don’t! don’t! you know you mustn’t,’ screamed valiant Mysie, flying to
the rescue.

‘Murderers! Murderers must be done for,’ shouted Wilfred, falling upon
Mysie.

‘You shan’t hurt my Mysie,’ bellowed Valetta, hurling herself upon
Wilfred.

And there they were all in a heap, when Gillian, summoned by the
shrieks, came down from helping her mother, pulled Valetta off Wilfred,
Wilfred off Mysie, Mysie off Fergus, and Fergus off Dolores, who was
discovered at the bottom with an angry, frightened face, and all her
hair standing on end.

‘Are you hurt, Dolores? I am very sorry,’ said Gillian. ‘It was very
naughty. Go up to the nursery, Fergus and Val, and be made fit to be
seen.’

They obeyed, crestfallen. Dolores felt herself all over. It would have
been gratifying to have had some injury to complain of, but she had
fallen on the prince’s cushions, and there really was none. So she only
said, ‘No, I’m not hurt, though it is a wonder;’ and off she walked
to bolt herself into her own room again, there to brood on Valetta’s
speech.

It worked up into a very telling and pathetic history for Constance’

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