'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 se 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.'