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's sympathizing ears on Sunday, especially as it turned out to be one of the things not reported to mamma.

And on that day, Dolores, being reminded of it by her friend, sent a letter to Mr. Flinders to the office of the paper for which he worked in London, to tell him that if he wished to write to her as he had promised he must address under cover to Miss Constance Hacket, Casement Cottage, as otherwise Aunt Lilias would certainly read all his letters.



CHAPTER IX.

LETTERS



Constance Hacket was very much excited about the address to Dolores's letter to her uncle. She had not noticed it at the moment that it was written, but she did when she posted it; and the next time she could get her young friend alone, she eagerly demanded what Mr. Flinders had to do with the Many Tongues, and why her niece wrote to him at the office.

'He writes the criticisms,' said Dolores, magnificently; for though she despised pluming herself on any connection with a marquess, she did greatly esteem that with the world of letters. 'You know we are all literary.'

'Oh yes, I know! But what kind of criticisms do you mean? I suppose it is a very clever paper?'

'Of course it it,' said Dolores, 'but I don't think I ever saw it. Father never takes in society papers. I believe he does criticisms on plays and novels. I know he always has tickets for all the theatres and exhibitions.

She did not say how she did know it, for a pang smote her as she remembered dimly a scene, when her father had forbidden her mother to avail herself of escort thus obtained. Nor was she sure that the word all was accurately the fact; but it was delightful to impress Constance, who cried, 'How perfectly delicious! I suppose he can get any article into his paper!'

'Oh yes, of course,' said Dolores.

'Did your dear mother write in it?'

'No; it was not her line. She used to write metaphysical and scientific articles in the first-class reviews and magazines, and the Many Tongues is what they call a society paper, you know.'

'Oh yes, I know. There are charming things about the Upper Ten Thousand. They tell all that is going on, but I hardly ever can see one. Mary won't take in anything about Church Bells, and we get the Guardian when it is a week old, and my brother James has done with it.'

'Dear me! How dreadful!' said Dolores, who had been used to see all manner of papers come in as regularly as hot rolls. 'Why, you never can know anything! We didn't take in society papers, because father does not care for gossip or grandees. He has other pursuits. I can show you some of dear mother's articles. There's one called 'Unconscious Volition,' and another on the 'Progress of Species.' I'll bring them down next time I come.'

'Have you read them?'

'No; they are too difficult. Mother was so very clever, you know.'

'She must have been,' said Constance, with a sigh; 'but how did she get them published?'

'Sent them to the editor, of course,' said Dolores. 'They all knew her, and were glad to get anything that she wrote.'

'Ah! that is what it is to have an introduction,' sighed Constance.

'What! have you written anything?' cried Dolores.

'Only a few little trifles,' said Constance, modestly. 'It is a great secret, you know, a dead secret.'

'Oh! I'll keep it. I told you my secret, you know, so you might tell me yours.'

And so to Dolores were confided sundry verses and tales on which Constance had been wont to spend a good deal of her time in that pretty sitting-room. She had actually sent her manuscripts to magazines, but she had heard no more of one, and the other had been returned declined with thanks—all for want of an introduction. Dolores was delighted to promise that as soon as she heard from Uncle Alfred, she would get him to patronize them, and the reading occupied several Sunday afternoons. Dolores suggested, however, that a goody-goody story about a choir-boy lost in the snow would never do for the Many Tongues, and a far more exciting one was taken up, called 'The Waif of the Moorland,' being the story of a maiden, whom a wicked step-mother was suspected of murdering, but who walked from time to time like the 'Woman in White.' There was only too much time for the romance; for weeks passed and there was no answer from Mr. Flinders. It was possible that he might have broken off his connection with the paper, only then the letter would probably have been returned; and the other alternative was less agreeable, that it was not worth his while to write to his niece. While as to Maude Sefton, nothing was heard of her. Were her letters intercepted? And so the winter side of autumn set in. Hal was gone to Oxford, and there had been time for letters to come from Mr. Mohun, posted from Auckland, New Zealand, where he had made a halt with his sister, Mrs. Harry May, otherwise Aunt Phyllis. Dolores was very much pleased to receive her letter, and to have it all to herself; but, after all, she was somewhat disappointed in it, for there was really nothing in it that might not have been proclaimed round the breakfast- table, like the public letters from that quarter of the family who were at Rawul Pindee. It told of deep-sea soundings and investigations into the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers for her to send to them—a very improving letter, but a good deal like a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and much interested about you; indeed, they wish I had brought you with me.'

Dolores read her letter over and over and over, for the pleasure of having something all to herself, and never communicated a word about the miscroscopic monsters her father had described, but she drew her head back and reflected, 'He little knows,' when he spoke of her being happy among her cousins.

Lady Merrifield likewise received a letter, about which she did not say much to her children, but Miss Mohun, who had had a much longer one, came over for the day to read this to her sister. In point of fact, she had paired in childhood with her brother Maurice. She had been his correspondent in school and college days, and being a person never easily rebuffed, she had kept up more intercourse with him and his wife than any others of the family had done, and he had preserved the habit of writing to her much more freely and unreservedly than to any one else. So the day after the New Zealand letters came, just as the historical reading and needlework were in full force, the schoolroom door was opened, and a brisk little figure stood there in sealskin coat and hat.

Up jumped mamma. 'Oh! Jenny! Brownie indeed! How did you come? You didn't walk from the station?'

'Yes, why not? Otherwise I should have been too soon, and have disturbed the lessons,' said Aunt Jane, in the intervals of the greeting kisses. 'All well with the Indian folks?'

'Oh yes; they've come back from the emerald valleys of Cashmere, and Alethea has actually sent me a primrose—just like an English one—that they found growing there. They did enjoy it so. Have you heard from Maurice?'

'Yes, I thought you would like to hear about Phyllis, so, having enjoyed it with Ada, I brought it over for further enjoyment with you.'

'That's a dear old Brownie! We've a good hour before dinner. Shall we read it to the general public, or shall we adjourn to the drawing- room?'

"Oh! I assure you it is very instructive. Quite as much so as Miss Sewell's 'Rome.'"

And Aunt Jane, whom Gillian had aided in disrobing herself of her outdoor garments, was installed by the fire, and unfolded a whole volume of thin, mauve sheets in Mr. Mohun's tiny Greek-looking handwriting.

It was a sort of journal of his voyage. There were all the same accounts of the minute creatures that are incipient chalk, and their exquisite cells, made, some of coral, some of silex spicule from sponges; the some descriptions of phosphorescent animals, meduse, and the like, that Dolores had thought her own special treasure and privilege, only a great deal fuller, and with the scientific terms untranslated—indeed, Aunt Jane had now and then to stop and explain, since she had always kept up with the course of modern discovery. There was also much more about his shipmates, with one or two of whom Mr. Mohun had evidently made great friends. He told his sister a great deal about them, and his conversations with them, whereas he had only told Dolores abut one little midshipman getting into a scrape. Perhaps nothing else was to be expected, but it made her feel the contrast between being treated with real confidence and as a mere child, and it seemed to put her father further away from her than ever.

Then came the conclusion, written on shore—

'Harry May came on board to take me home with him. He is a fine, genial fellow and his welcome did one's heart good. I never did him justice before; but I see his good sense and superiority called into play out here. Depend upon it, there's nothing like going to the other end of the world to teach the value of home ties.'

'Well done, Maurice,' exclaimed Lady Merrifield; but she glanced at Dolores and checked herself.

Miss Mohun went on, 'Phyllis met me at the door of a pleasant, English- looking house, with all her tribe about her. She has the true 'honest Phyl' face still, carrying me back over some thirty or forty years of life, and as you would imagine, she is a capital mother, with all her flock well in hand, and making themselves thoroughly useful in the scarcity of servants; though the other matters do not seem neglected. The eldest can talk like a well informed girl, and shows reasonable interest in things in general; but Phyllis wants to put finishing touches to their education, and her husband talks of throwing up his appointment before long, as he is anxious to go home while his father lives. I wish I had gone to Stoneborough before coming out here, now that I see what a gratification it would have been if I could have brought a fresh report of old Dr. May. (Somehow, I think there has been a numbness or obtuseness about me all these last two years which hindered me from perceiving or doing much that I now regret, since either the change or the wholesome atmosphere of this house has wakened me as it were. Among these ungracious omissions is what I now am much concerned to think of, that I never went to see Lilias when I committed my child to her charge; nor talked over her disposition. Not that I really understand it as I ought to have done when the poor child was left to me. I take shame to myself when Phyllis questions me about her), but as I watch these children with their parents I am quite convinced that the being taken under Lily's motherly wing is by far the best thing that could have befallen Dolores, and that my absence is for her real benefit as well as mine.'

The part between brackets was omitted by Miss Mohun in the public reading, but the last sentence she did read, thinking it good for both parties to hear it. However, Dolores both disliked the conclusion to which her father had come, and still more that her aunt and cousins should hear it, though, after all, it was only Gillian and Mysie who remained to listen by the time the end of the letter was reached. The long words had frightened away Valetta as soon as her appointed task of work was finished.

Aunt Lily did not see the omitted sentence till the two sisters were alone together later in the afternoon. It filled her eyes with tears. 'Poor Maurice,' she said; 'he wrote something of the same kind to me.'

'I expect we shall see him wonderfully shaken up and brightened when he comes home. The numbness he talks of was half of it Mary's dislike to us all, only I never would let her keep me aloof from him.'

'I almost wish he had taken Dolores out to Phyllis. I am not in the least fulfilling his ideal towards her.'

'Nor would Phyllis, unless the voyage had had as much effect on her as it seems to have had upon Maurice. So you don't get on any better?'

'Not a bit. It is a case of parallel lines. We don't often have collisions—unless Wilfred gets an opportunity of provoking her.'

'Why don't you send that boy to school?'

'I shall after Christmas. He is quite well now, and to have him at home is bad both for himself and the others. He needs licking into shape as only boys can do to one another, and he is not a model for Fergus, especially since Harry has been away.'

'What does he do?'

'Nothing very brilliant, nor of the kind one half forgives for the drollery of it. Putting mustard into the custard was the worst, I think; inciting the dogs to bring the cattle down on the girls when they cross the paddock; shutting up their books when the places are found—those are the sort of things; putting that very life-like wild cat chauffe-pied with glaring eyes in Dolly's bed. I believe he does such things to all, but his sisters would let him torture them rather than complain, whereas Dolores does her best to bring them under my notice without actually laying an information, which she is evidently afraid to do. It is very unlucky that her coming should have been just when we had such an element about—for it really gives her some just cause of complaint.'

'But you say he is impartial?'

'Teasing is unfortunately his delight. He will even frighten Primrose, but I am afraid there is active dislike making Dolores his favourite victim; and then Val and Fergus, who don't tease actively on their own account, have come to enjoy her discomfiture.'

"And you go on the principle of 'tolerer beaucoup?'"

'I do; hoping that it is not laziness and weakness that makes me abstain from nagging about what is not brought before my eyes by the children or the police—I mean Gill, Halfpenny, and Miss Vincent. Then I scold, or I punish, and that I think maintains the principle, without danger to truth or forbearance. At least, I hope it does. I am pretty sure that if I punished Wilfred for every teasing trick I know, or guess at, he would—in his present mood—only become deceitful, and esprit de corps might make Val and Fergus the same, though I don't think Mysie's truth could be shaken any more than honest Phyl's.'

'Besides, mutual discipline is not a thing to upset. Lily, I revere you! I never thought you were going to turn out such a sensible mother.'

'Well, you see, the difficulty is, that what may work for one's own children may not work for other people's. And I confess I don't understand her persistent repulse of Mysie.'

'Nor of you, the nasty little cat!' said Aunt Jane, with a little fierce shake of the head.

'I do understand that a little. I am too unlike Mary for her to stand being mothered by me.'

'There must be some other influence at work for this perverseness to keep on so long. Tell me, did she take up with that very goosey girl, that Miss Hacket?'

'Oh yes; she goes there every Sunday afternoon. It is the only thing the poor child seem much to care about, and I don't think there can be any harm in it.'

'Humph! the folly of girl is unfathomable! Oh! you may say what you like—you who have thrown yourself into your daughters and kept them one with you. You little know in your innocence the product of an ill- managed boarding-school!'

'Nay,' said Lady Merrifield, a little hotly, 'I do know that Miss Hacket is one of the most excellent people in the world, a little tiresome and borne, perhaps, but thoroughly good, and every inch a lady.'

'Granted, but that's not the other one—Constance is her name? My dear, I saw her goings on at the G.F.S. affair—If she had only been a member, wouldn't I have been at her.'

'My dear Jenny, you always had more eyes to your share than other people.'

'And you think that being an old maid has not lessened their sharpness, eh! Lily? Well, I can't help it, but my notion is that the sweet Constance—whatever her sister may be—is the boarding-school miss a little further developed into sentiment and flirtation.'

'Nay, but that would be so utterly uncongenial to a grave, reserved, intellectual girl, brought up as Dolores has been.'

'Don't trust to that! Dolores is an interesting orphan, and the notice of a grown-up young lady is so flattering that it carries off a great deal of folly.'

'Well, Jenny, I must think about it. I hope I have done no harm by allowing the friendship—the only indulgence she has seemed to wish for; and I am afraid checking it would only alienate he still more! Poor Maurice, when he is trusting and hoping in vain!'

'Three year is a long time, Lily; and you have no had three months of her yet—'

The door opened at that moment for the afternoon tea, which was earlier than usual, to follow of Miss Mohun's reaching the station in time for her train. Lady Merrifield was to drive her, and it was the turn of Dolores to go out, so that she shared the refection instead of waiting for gouter. In the midst the Miss Hackets were announced, and there were exclamations of great joy at the sight of Miss Mohun; as she and Miss Hacket flew upon each other, and to the very last moment, discussed the all-engrossing subject of G.F.S. politics.

Nevertheless, while Miss Mohun was hurrying on her sealskin in her sister's room, she found an opportunity of saying, 'Take care, Lily, I saw a note pass between those two.'

'My dear Jenny, how could you? You were going on the whole time about cards and premiums and associates. Oh! yes, I know a peacock or a lynx is nothing to you, but how was it possible? Why, I was making talk to Constance all along, and trying to make Dolly speak of her father's letter.'

'I might retort by talking of moles and bats! Did you never hear of the London clergyman whose silver cream-jug, full of cream too, was abstracted by the penitent Sunday school boy whom he was exhorting over his breakfast-table?'

'I don't believe London curates have silver jugs or cream either!'

'A relic of past wealth, like St. Gregory's one silver dish, and perhaps it was milk. Well, to descend to particulars. It was done with a meaning glance, as Dolores was helping her on with her cloud, and was instantly disposed of in the pocket.'

'I wonder what I ought to do about it,' sighed Lady Merrifield, 'If I had seen it myself I should have no doubts. Oh! if Jasper were but here! And yet it is hardly a thing to worry him about. It is most likely to be quite innocent.'

'Well, then you can speak of the appearance of secrecy as bad manners. You will have her all to yourself as you go home.'

But when the aunts came downstairs, Dolores was not there. On being called, she sent a voice down, over the balusters, that she was not going.

Aunt Jane shrugged her shoulders. There was barely time to reach the train, so that it was impossible to do anything at the moment; but in the Merrifield family bad manners and disrespect were never passed over, Sir Jasper having made his wife very particular in that respect; and as soon as she came home in the twilight, she looked into the school-room, but Dolores was not there, and then into the drawing-room, where she was found learning her lessons by firelight.

'My dear, why did you not go with your Aunt Jane and me?'

'I did not want to go. It was so cold,' said Dolores in a glum tone.

'Would it not have been kinder to have found that out sooner? If I had not met the others in the paddock, and picked up Valetta, the chance would have been missed, and you knew she wanted to go.'

Dolores knew it well enough. The reason she was in this room was that all the returning party had fallen upon her; Wilfred had called her a dog in the manger, and Gillian herself had not gainsayed him—but the general indignation had only made her feel, 'what a fuss about the darling.'

'Another time, too,' added Lady Merrifield, 'remember that it would be proper to come down and speak to me instead of shouting over the balusters in that unmannerly way; without so much as taking leave of your Aunt Jane. If she had not been almost late for her train, I should have insisted.'

'You might, and I should not have come if you had dragged me,' thought, but did not say, Dolores. She only stood looking dogged, and not attempting the 'I beg your pardon,' for which her aunt was waiting.

'I think,' said Lady Merrifield, gently, 'that when you consider it a little, you will see that it would be well to be more considerate and gracious. And one thing more, my dear, I can have no passing of private notes between you and Constance Hacket. You see a good deal of each other openly, and such doings are very silly and missish, and have an underhand appearance such as I am sure your father would not like.'

Dolores burst out with, 'I didn't,' and as Primrose at this instant ran in to help mamma take off her things, she turned on her heel and went away, leaving Lady Merrifield trusting to a word never hitherto in that house proved to be false, rather than to those glances of Aunt Jane, which had been always held in the Mohun family to be a little too discerning and ubiquitous to be always relied on; and it was a satisfactory recollection that at the farewell moment when Miss Jane professed to have observed the transaction, she had been heard saying, 'Yes, it will never do to be too slack in inquiring into antecedents, or the whole character of the society will be given up,' and with her black eyes fixed full upon Miss Hacket's face.



CHAPTER X.

THE EVENING STAR



'Oh, Connie dear, I had such a fright! Do you know you must never venture to give me anything when any one is there—especially Aunt Jane. I am sure it was her. she is always spying about?'

'Well, but dearest Dolly, I couldn't tell that she would be there, and when I got your letter I could not keep it back, you know, so I made Mary come up and call on Lady Merrifield for the chance of being able to give it to you—and I thought it was so lucky Miss Mohun was there, for she and Mary were quite swallowed up in their dear G.F.S.'

'You don't know Aunt Jane! And the worst of it is she always makes Aunt Lilias twice as cross! I did get into such a row only because I didn't want to go driving with the two old aunts in the dark and cold, and be scolded all the way there and back.'

'When you had a letter to read too!'

'And then Aunt Lily said all manner of cross things about giving notes between us. I was so glad I could say I didn't, for you know I didn't give it to you, and it wasn't between us.'

'You cunning child!' laughed Constance, rather amused at the sophistry.

'Besides,' argued Dolores, 'what right has she to interfere between my uncle and my friends and me?

'You dear! Yes, it is all jealousy!'

'I have heard—or I have read,' said Dolores, 'that when people ask questions they have no right to put, it is quite fair to give them a denial, or at least to go as near the wind as one can.'

'To be sure,' assented Constance, 'or one would not get on at all! But you have no told me a word about your letters.'

'Father's letter? Oh, he tells me a great deal about his voyage, and all the funny creatures they get up with the dredge. I think he will be sure to write a book about them, and make great discoveries. And now he is staying with Aunt Phyllis in New Zealand, and he is thinking, poor father, how well off I must be with Aunt Lilias. He little knows!'

'Oh, but you could write to him, dearest!'

'He wouldn't get the letter for so long. Besides, I don't think I could say anything he would care about. Gentlemen don't, you know.'

'No! gentlemen can't enter into our feelings, or know what it is to be rubbed against and never appreciated. But your uncle! Was the letter from him?'

'Oh yes! And where do you think he is? At Darminster—editing a paper there. It is called the Darminster Politician. He said he sent a copy here.'

"Oh yes, I know; Mary and I could not think where it came from. It had a piece of a story in it, and some poetry. I wonder if he would put in my 'Evening Star.'"

'You may read his letter if you like; you see he says he would run over to see me if it were not for the dragons.'

'I wish he could come and meet you here. It would be so romantic, but you see Mary is half a dragon herself, and would be afraid of Lady Merrifield'—then, reading the letter,—'How droll! How clever! What a delightful man he must be! How very strange that all your family should be so prejudiced against him! I'll tell you what, Dolores, I will write and subscribe for the Darminster Politician my own self—I must see the rest of that story—and then Mary can't make any objection; I can't stand never seeing anything but Church Bells, and then you can read it too, darling.'

'Oh, thank you, Connie. Then I shall have got him one subscriber, as he asks me to do. I am afraid I shan't get any more, for I thought Aunt Lily was in a good humour yesterday, and I put one of the little advertisement papers he sent out on the table, and she found it, and only said something about wondering who had sent the advertisement of that paper that Mr. Leadbitter didn't approve of. She is so dreadfully fussy and particular. She won't let even Gillian read anything she hasn't looked over, and she doesn't like anything that isn't goody goody.'

'My poor darling! But couldn't you write and get your uncle to look at some of my poor little verses that have never seen the light?'

'I dare say I could,' said Dolores, pleased to be able to patronize. 'Oh, but you must not write on both sides of the paper, I know, for father and mother were always writing for the press.'

'Oh, I'll copy them out fresh! Here's the 'Evening Star.' It was suggested by the sound of the guns firing at the autumn manoevres; here's the 'Bereaved Mother's Address to her Infant:'

'Sweet little bud of stainless white, Thou'lt blossom in the garden of light.'

'Mary thought that so sweet she asked Miss Mohun to send it to Friendly Leaves, but she wouldn't—Miss Mohun I mean; she said she didn't think they would accept it, and that the lines didn't scan. Now I'm sure its only Latin and Greek that scan! English rhymes, and doesn't scan! That's the difference!'

'To be sure!' said Dolores, 'but Aunt Jane always does look out for what nobody else cares about. Still I wouldn't send the baby-verses to Uncle Alfred, for they do sound a little bit goody, and the 'Evening Star' would be better.'

The verses were turned over and discussed until the summons came to tea, poured out by kind old Miss Hacket, who had delighted in providing her young guests with buttered toast and tea cakes.

Dolores went home quite exhilarated and unusually amiable.

Her letter to her father was finished the next day. It contained the following information.

'Uncle Alfred is at Darminster. He is sub-editor to the Politician, the Liberal county paper. I do not suppose Aunt Lilias will let me see him, for she does not like anything that dear mother did. There is a childish obsolete tone of mind here; I suppose it is because they have never lived in London, and the children are all so young of their age, and so rude, Wilfred most especially. Even Gillian, who is sixteen, likes quite childish games, and Mysie, who is my age, is a mere child in tastes, and no companion. I do wish I could have gone with you.'

Lady Merrifield wrote by the same mail, 'Your Dolores is quite well, and shows herself both clever and well taught. Miss Vincent thinks highly of her abilities, and gets on with her better than any one else, except the daughter of our late Vicar, for whom she has set up a strong girlish friendship. She plainly has very deep affections, which are not readily transferred to new claimants, but I feel sure that we shall get on in time.'

Miss Mohun wrote, 'Lily and I enjoyed your letter together. Dolly looks all the better for country life, though I am afraid she has not learnt to relish it, nor to assimilate with the Merrifield children as I expected. I don't think Lily has quite fathomed her as yet, but 'cela viendra' with patience, only mayhap not without a previous explosion. I fancy it takes a long time for an only child to settle in among a large family. It was a great pity you could not see Lily yourself. To my dismay I encountered Flinders in the street at Darminster last week. I believe he is on the staff of a paper there, happily Dolly does not know it, nor do I think he knows where she is.'

In another three weeks, Constance was in the utmost elation, for 'On hearing the cannonade of the Autumn Manoeuvres' was in print, and Miss Hacket was so much delighted that justice should be done to her sister's abilities, that she forgot Mr. Leadbitter's disapproval, and ordered half a dozen copies of the Politician for the present, and one for the future.

Dolores, walking home in the twilight, could not help showing Gillian, in confidence, the precious slip, though it was almost too dark to read the small type.

'Newspaper poetry, I thought that always was trumpery,' said Gillian, making a youthfully sweeping assertion.

'Many great poets have begun with a periodical press,' said Dolores, picking up a sentence which she had somewhere read.

'I thought you hated English poetry, Dolly! You always grumble at having to learn it.'

'Oh, that is lessons.'

"'Il Penseroso,' for instance."

'This is a very different thing.'

'That it certainly is,' said Gillian, beginning to read—

'How lovely mounts the evening star Climbing the sunset skies afar.'

'What a wonderful evening! Why, the evening star was going up backward!'

'You only want to make nonsense of it.'

'It is not I that make nonsense!' said Gillian, 'why, don't you see, Dolly, which way the sun and everything moves?'

'This is the evening star,' said Dolores, sulkily. 'It was just rising.'

'I do believe you think it rises in the west.'

'You always see it there. You showed it to me only last Sunday.'

'Do you think it had just risen?'

'Of course the stars rise when the sun sets.'

Gillian could hardly move for laughing. 'My dear Dolores, you to be daughter to a scientific man! Don't you know that the stars are in the sky, going on all the time, only we can't see them till the sunlight is gone?'

But Dolores was too much offended to attend, and only grunted. She wanted to get the cutting away from Gillian, but there was no doing so.

'The mist is rising o'er the mead, With silver hiding grass and reed; 'Tis silent all, on hill and heath, The evening winds, they hardly breathe; What sudden breaks the silent charm, The echo wakes with wild alarm. With rapid, loud, and furious rattle, Sure 'tis the voice of deadly battle, Bidding the rustic swain to fly Before his country's enemy.'

'Did anybody ever hear of a sham fight in the evening?' cried the soldier's daughter indignantly. 'There, I can't see any more of it.'

'Give it to me, then.'

'You are welcome! Where did it come from? Let me look. C.H. Oh, did Constance Hacket write it? Nobody else could be so delicious, or so far superior to Milton.'

'You knew it all the time, and that was the reason you made game of it.'

'No, indeed it was not, Dolores. I did not guess. You should have told me at first.'

'You would have gone on about it all the same.'

'No, indeed, I hope not. I did not mean to vex you; but how was I to know it was so near your heart?'

'I ought to have known better than to have shown it to you! You are always laughing at her and me all over the house—and now—'

'Come, Dolly. I never meant to hurt your feelings. I will promise not to tell the others about it.'

No answer. There was something hard and swelling in Dolores's throat.

'Won't that do?' said Gillian. 'You know I can't say that I admire it, but I'm sorry I hurt you, and I'll take care the others don't tease you about it.'

Dolores made hardly any answer, but it was a sort of pacification, and Gillian said not a word to the younger ones. Still she thought it no breach of her promise, when they were all gone to bed, and she the sole survivor, to tell her mother how inadvertently she had affronted Dolores by cutting up the verses, before she knew whose they were.

'I am sorry,' said Lady Merrifield. 'Anything that tends to keep Dolores aloof from us is a pity.'

'But, mama, I had no notion whose they were.'

'You saw that she was pleased with them.'

'Yes, but that was the more ridiculous. Fancy the evening star climbing up—up—you know in the sunset!'

'Portentous, certainly! Yet still I wish you could have found it in your heart to take advantage of any feeler towards sympathy.'

'How could I pretend to admire such stuff?'

'You need not pretend; but there are two ways of taking hold of a thing without being untrue. If you had been a little wiser and more forbearing you need not have given Dolores such a shock as would drive her in upon herself. Depend upon it, the older you grow, the more dangerous you will find it to begin by hitting the blots.'

Gillian looked on in some curiosity when the next day good Miss Hacket, enchanted with her dear Connie's success, trotted up to display the lines to Lady Merrifield, who on her side felt bound to set an example alike of tenderness and sincerity, and was glad to be able to observe, 'The lines run very smoothly. This must be a great pleasure to her.'

'Indeed it is! Connie is so clever. I always say I can't think where she got it from; but we always tried to give her very advantage, and she was quite a favourite pupil at Miss Dormer's. Is not it a sweet idea, the stillness of the evening broken by the sounds of battle, and then it proving to be only our brave defenders?'

'Yes,' was the answer. 'I have often thought of that, and of what it might be to hear those volleys of musketry in earnest. It has made me very thankful.'

So Miss Hacket went away gratified, and Gillian owned that it would have been useless to wound the good lady's feelings by criticism, though her mother made her understand that if her opinion had been asked, or Connie herself had shown the verses, it would have been desirable to point out the faults, in a kindly spirit. The wonder was, how they could have found their way into the paper, and they were followed by more with the like signature.

Indeed, the great sensational tale, 'The Waif of the Moorland,' was being copied out of the books where it had been first written. Dolores had sounded Mr. Flinders on the subject, and he had replied that he could ensure its consideration by a publisher, but that her fair friend must be aware that an untried author must be prepared for some risk.

Constance could hardly abstain from communicating her hopes to her sister; but Mr. Leadbitter—to whom the poetry was duly shown—had given such a character of the Darminster Politician that Miss Hacket besought Constance to have no more to do with it. Besides, she was so entirely a lady, and so conscientious, that all her tender blindness would not have prevented her from being shocked at encouraging, or profiting by, a surreptitious correspondence.

Constance declared that Mr. Leadbitter's objection to the paper was merely political, and her sister was too willing that she should be gratified to protest any further. The copying had to be done in secret, since it was impossible to confess the hopes founded on Mr. Flinders, and it therefore lasted several weeks, each fresh portion being communicated to Dolores on Sunday afternoons. There were at first a few scruples on Constance's part whether this were exactly a Sunday occupation; but Dolores pronounced that 'the Sabbatarian system was gone out,' and after Constance had introduced the ghostly double of her vanished waif walking in a surpliced procession, she persuaded herself that there was a sufficient aroma of religion about the story to bring it within the pale of Sunday books.

The days were shortening so that Lady Merrifield had doubts as to the fitness of letting the girls return in the dark, but Gillian would have been grieved to relinquish her class, and the matter was adjusted by the two remaining till evensong, when there was sure to be sufficient escort for them to come home with.

Therewith arrived the holidays and Jasper, whose age came between those of Gillian and Mysie. Dolores had looked forward to his coming, for, by all the laws of fiction, he was bound to be the champion of the orphan niece, and finally to develop into her lover and hero. In 'No Home,' when Clare's aunt locked her up and fed her on bread and water for playing the piano better than her spiteful cousin Augusta, Eric, the boy of the family, had solaced her with cold pie and ice-creams drawn up in a basket by a cord from the window. He had likewise forced from his cruel mother the locket which proved Clare's identity with the mourning countess's golden-haired grandchild and heiress, and he had finally been rewarded with her hand, becoming in some mysterious manner Lord Eric.

Jasper, however, or Japs, as his family preferred to call him, proved to be a big, shy boy, not at all delighted with the introduction of a stranger among his sisters, neither golden-haired nor all-accomplished, only making him feel his home invaded, and looking at him with her great eyes.

'Is that girl here for good?' he asked, when he found himself with Harry and Gillian.

'Yes, of course,' said the cousin, 'while her father is away, and that is for three years.'

Jasper whistled.

'Aunt Ada said,' added Gillian, 'that if she got too tiresome, mamma had Uncle Maurice's leave to send her to school.'

'That would be no good to me,' said Jasper, 'for she would still be here in the holidays.'

'Has she been getting worse?' asked Harry.

'No, I don't know that she has,' said Gillian, 'except that she runs after that Constance more than ever. But, I say, Jasper, mamma says she is particularly anxious that there should be no teasing of her; and you can hinder Wilfred better than anybody can. She wants her to be really at home, and one—'

But though Jasper was very fond both of mother and sister, he would not stand a second-hand lecture, and broke in with an inquiry about chances of rabbit-shooting.

Among his juniors he heard more opinions and more undisguised, when the whole party had rushed out together to the stable-yard to inspect the rabbits and other live-stock.

'And Dolly says you are a fright,' sighed Mysie, condoling with a very awkward-looking puppy which she was nursing.

'She! she thinks everything a fright!' said Valetta.

'Except Constance,' added Wilfred.

'Who is ugliest of all!' politely chimed in Fergus.

'Oh, Japs, she is such a nasty girl—Dolly, I mean!' cried Valetta.

"You know you ought not to say 'nasty,'" exclaimed Mysie.

'Well, but she is!' insisted Val. 'She squashed a dear little lady- bird, and said it would sting!'

'She really thought it would,' said Mysie.

At which the young barbarians shouted aloud with contempt, and Valetta added. 'She is afraid of everything—cows and dogs and frogs.'

'I got a whole match-box full of grasshoppers to shut up in her desk and make her squall,' said Wilfred, 'only the girls went and turned them out.'

'It was so cruel to the poor grasshoppers,' said Mysie. 'One had his horn broken, and dragged his leg.'

'What does she do?' asked Jasper.

'She's always cross,' said Fergus.

'And she won't play,' added Valetta. 'And never will lend us anything of hers.'

'And she's a regular sneak,' said Wilfred. 'She wants to tell of everything—only we stopped that and she doesn't dare now.'

'You see,' said Mysie, gravely, 'she has always lived alone and in London, and that makes her horribly stupid about everything sensible. We thought we should soon teach her to be nice; and mamma says we shall if we are patient.'

'We'll teach her, won't we, Japs!' said Wilfred, aside, in an ominous voice.

'She is only thirteen,' added Valetta, 'and she pretends to be grown up, and only to care for a grown-up young lady—that Constance Hacket.'

'Yes,' added Mysie, 'only think—they write poetry!'

'What rot it must be!' said Jasper. 'There's a man in my house that writes poetry, and don't they chaff him! And this must be ever so much worse.'

'Oh, that it is,' said Valetta. 'I heard Mr. Poulter and Miss Vincent laughing about it like anything.'

'But they get it put into print,' said Mysie, still impressed. 'Miss Hacket brought it up to give to mamma, and there's ever so much of it shut up in the drawing-room blotting-book with the malachite knobs. I can't think why they laugh—I think it is very pretty. Old Miss Hacket read me the one about "My Lost Dove."'

'Mysie always will stick up for Dolores,' said Valetta in a grumbling voice.

'I always meant her to be my friend,' said Mysie, disconsolately.

'Well, I'm glad she's not,' said Jasper. 'What a sell it would have been for me to find you chummy with a stupid, poetry-writing, good-for- nothing girl like that, instead of my jolly old Mice!'

And at that minute all Dolly's slights were fully compensated for!

There was a lurking purpose in the boys' minds that if Dolores would not join in fun, yet still fun should be extracted from her. Jasper had brought home a box of Japanese fireworks, and Wilfred, who was superintending his unpacking, proposed to light the serpent and place it in Dolores's path as she was going up to bed; but Jasper was old enough to reply that he would have no concern with anything so low and snobbish as such a trick. In fact, there was in Jasper's mind a decided line between bullying and teasing, which did not exist as yet in Wilfred's conscience. And, altogether, Dolores was in a state of mind that made her stiff letters to her father betray low spirits and discontent.

On Sunday, while waiting for the early dinner, Jasper and Mysie happened to be together in the drawing-room, and Mysie took the opportunity of showing her brother the different cuttings of poetry. The lines were smooth, and some had a certain swing in them such as Mysie, with an unformed taste, a love for Miss Hacket, and amazement that the words of a familiar acquaintance of her own should appear in print, genuinely admired. But the eyes of a youth exercised in 'chaffing' the productions of one of his fellow 'men' were infinitely more critical. Besides, what could be more shocking to the General's son than the confusion between the evening gun and the sham fight? And Mysie had been reduced to confusion for not detecting the faults, and then pardoned in consideration of being only a girl, by the time the gong summoned them to the Sunday roast beef.

The dinner over, the female part of the family, scampered headlong upstairs, while Harry repaired with his mother to her room to talk over a letter from his father respecting his plans on leaving Oxford. The other boys hung about the hall, until Gillian and Dolores came down equipped for walking. 'Hollo, Gill! All right! Where's Mysie? We'll be off! Mysie! Mice! Mouse! Val!'

'You must wait for them, Japs,' said Gillian. 'They are having their dresses changed; and, don't you remember, I always go to Miss Hacket's.'

'Botheration! What for?'

'You know very well.'

'Oh yes. To help her to write touching verses about the sweet dead dove, with voice and plumage soft as love, eh? Only, Gill, I'm afraid your memory is failing, if you don't know the evening gun from rifle practice.'

'Nonsense! that's no concern of mine,' said Gillian, opening the front door, very anxious to get Dolores away from hearing anything worse.

'Oh, that's your modesty. Only such a conjunction could have produced such a scene that the evening star came up backwards to look at it!'

'For shame, Jasper! How in the world did you get hold of that?'

'Too sweet a thing not to meet with universal fame,' said Jasper, to whom it was exquisite fun to assume that Gillian devoted her Sunday afternoons to the concoction of such poetry with Constance Hacket, and thus to revenge himself for his disgust and jealousy at having his favourite companion and slave engrossed. Wilfred hopped about like an imp in ecstasy, grinning in the face of Dolores, whom Gillian longed to free from her tormentors. The shout was welcome, as Mysie and Valetta came tearing down the drive after them.

'Japs! Japs! Oh, we couldn't come before because nurse would make us take off our Sunday serges. Come and let out the dogs. Mamma says we may see if there are any nice fir cones in the plantation to gild for the Christmas-tree.'

'And you won't come?' said Jasper. 'The Muses must meet. What a poem you will produce!

'Hear I a cannon or a rifle, That is an unessential trifle!'

'What nonsense boys do talk!' said Gillian, turning her back on them with regret; for much as she loved her class, she better loved a walk with Jasper, and here was Dolores on her hands in a state of exasperation, believing her to have broken her promise, and muttering,

'You set him on.'

'No, indeed I never did! You know I promised.'

'There are plenty of ways of getting out of a promise.'

'Speak for yourself, Dolores.'

There were ten minutes of offended silence, and then Gillian said, 'This is nonsense! You may believe me, I was sorry I laughed at the first verses you showed me, and mamma said I ought not. We never spoke of it, but Miss Hacket has been giving mamma all the poems, and Jasper must have got at them. Don't you see?'

'Oh yes, you say so,' said Dolores, sulkily.

'You don't believe me!'

'You promised that your brothers should never hear of it.'

'I promised for myself. I couldn't promise for what was put into a newspaper and trumpeted all over the place,' said Gillian, really angry now.

Dolores could not deny this, but she was hurt by the word trumpeted; and besides, her own slippery behaviour was weakening her trust in other people's sincerity, and she only gave a kind of grunt; but Gillian, recovering herself a little, and remembering her mother's words, proceeded to argue. 'Besides, it was me whom Jasper meant to tease, not you.'

'I don't care which it was. He is as bad as the rest of them!'

Gillian attempted no more conciliation, and they arrived in silence at the Casement Cottages, where Constance was awaiting her friend in the greatest excitement; for she had despatched 'The Waif of the Moorland' to Mr. Flinders in the course of the week, and had received a letter from him in return, saying that a personal interview with the gifted authoress would be desirable.

'And I do long to see him; don't you, darling?

'It is very hard that he should be kept away from me,' said Dolores, trying to stir up some tender feelings.

'That it is, my poor sweet! I thought whether he could come to me for a merely literary consultation without Mary's knowing anything further about it, and then we could contrive for you to come down and meet him; but there are so many horrid prejudices that I suppose it would not be safe.'

'I don't see how I could come down here without the others. Aunt Lily won't let me come alone, and though it is holiday time, that is no good, for those horrid boys are always about, and I see that Jasper is going to be worse even than Wilfred.

Various ways and means were discussed, but no excuse seemed available for either Constance's going to Darminster, or for Mr. Flinders coming to Silverton, without exciting suspicion.



CHAPTER XI.

SECRET EXPEDITION



'The Christmas-tree! Oh, mamma, do let it be the Christmas-tree. It is quite well. We've been to look at it.'

'Christmas-trees have got so stale, Val,' said Gillian.

'Rot!' put in Jasper.

'Oh, please, please, mamma,' implored Valetta, 'please let it be the dear old Christmas-tree! You said I should choose because it will be my birthday.'

'There is no need to whine, Val; you shall have your tree.'

'I'm so glad!' cried Mysie. 'The dear old tree is best of all. I could never get tired of it if I lived to be a hundred years old.'

'Such are institutions,' said their mother. 'I never heard of a Christmas-tree till I was twice your age.'

'Oh, mamma! How dreadful! What did you do?'

'I suppose it is all very well for you kids,' said Jasper, loftily, putting his hands in his pockets.

'Perhaps something may be found interesting eve: to the high and mighty elders,' observed Lady Merrifield.

'Oh! What, mamma?'

Mamma, of course, only looked mysterious.

'And,' added Val, 'mayn't we all go on a secret expedition and buy things for it?'

'We've all been saving up,' added Mysie; 'and everybody knows every single thing in all the shop at Silverton.'

'Besides,' added Gillian, 'the sconces will none of them hold, and almost all the golden globes got smashed in coming from Dublin, and one of the birds has its head off, and another has lost its spun-glass tail, and another its legs.'

'A bird of Paradise,' said Lady Merrifield, laughing; 'but wasn't there a tree at Malta decked with no apparatus at all?'

'Yes, but Alley and Phyl can do anything!'

'I think we must ask Aunt Jane—-'

There was a howl. 'Oh, please, mamma, don't let Aunt Jane get all the things! We do so want to choose.'

'You impatient monsters! You haven't heard me out, and you don't deserve it.'

'Oh, mamma, I beg your pardon!' 'Oh, mamma, please!' 'Oh, mamma, pray!' cried the most impatient howlers, dancing round her.

'What I was about to observe, before the interruption by the honourable members, was, that we might perhaps ask Aunt Jane and Aunt Ada to receive at luncheon a party of caterers for this same tree.'

'Oh! oh! oh!' 'How delicious!' 'Hooray!' 'That's what I call jolly fun!'

'And, mamma,' added Gillian, 'perhaps we might let Miss Hacket join. I know she wants to get up something for a G.F.S. class; but mamma was attending to Primrose, and the brothers burst in.

'There goes Gill, spoiling it all!' exclaimed Wilfred.

'That's always the way,' said Jasper. 'Girls must puzzle everything up with some philanthropic Great Fuss Society dodge.'

'I am sure, Jasper,' said Gillian, 'I don't see why it should spoil anything to make other people happy. I thought we were told to make feasts not only for our own friends—'

'Gill's getting just like old Miss Hacket,' said Wilfred.

'Or sweet Constance,' put in Jasper. 'She'll be writing poems next.'

'Hush! hush! boys,' said Lady Merrifield. 'I do not mean to interfere with your pleasure, 'but I had rather our discussions were not entirely selfish. Suppose, Gillian, we walked down to Casement Cottages, and consulted Miss Hacket.'

This was done, in the company of all the little girls, for Miss Hacket's cats, doves, and gingerbread were highly popular; moreover, Dolores was glad of a chance sight of Constance.

'My dear,' said Lady Merrifield, as Gillian walked beside her, 'you must be satisfied with giving Miss Hacket the reversion of our tree, and you and Mysie can go and help her. It will not do to make these kind of works a nuisance to your brothers.'

'I did not think Jasper would have been so selfish as to object,' said Gillian, almost tearfully.

'Remember that boys have a very short time at home, and cannot be expected to care for these things like those who work in them,' said Lady Merrifield. 'It will not make them do so, to bore them, and take away their sense of home and liberty. At the same time, they must not expect to have everything sacrificed to them, and so I shall make Jasper understand.'

'You won't scold him, mamma?'

'Can't you, any of you, trust me, Gill?'

'Oh! mamma! Only I didn't want him to think. I wouldn't do everything he liked, except that I don't want him to be unkind about those poor girls.'

Miss Hacket was perfectly enraptured at the offer of the reversion of the Christmas-tree and its trapping. Valetta's birthday was on the 28th of December and the tree was to be lighted on the ensuing evening for G.F.S. Moreover, the party would go to Rockstone as soon as an appointment could be made with Miss Mohun, to make selections at a great German fancy shop, recently opened there, and in full glory; and the Hacket sisters were invited to join the party, starting at a quarter to eight, and returning at a few minutes after seven, the element of darkness at each end only adding to the charm in the eyes of the children, and Valetta, with a little leap, repeated that it would be a real secret expedition.

'Very secret indeed,' said her mother, 'considering how many it is known to—'

'Yes, but it is, mamma, for everybody has a secret from everybody.'

The words made Constance and Dolores look round with a start from their colloquy under the shade of the window-curtains, but no one was thinking of them. Just as the plans were settled, Constance came forward, saying, 'Lady Merrifield, may I have dear Dolores to spend the day with me? We neithe of us wish to join your kind party to Rockstone, and we should so enjoy being together.'

'I had much rather stay,' added Dolores.

'Very well,' said Lady Merrifield, reflecting that her sisters would be grateful for the diminution of the party, and that it would be easier to keep the peace without Dolores.

The defection was hailed with joy by her cousins, though they were struck dumb at her extraordinary taste in not liking shopping.

Jasper did look rather small when his mother assured him in private he might have trusted her to see that he was not to be incommoded with Gillian's girls, and he only observed, in excuse for his murmurs, that it made a man mad to see his sisters always off after some charity fad or other.

"'Always' being a few hours once a week," she said.

'Just when one wants her.'

'Look here, my boy,' she said, 'you don't want your sisters to be selfish, useless, fine ladies—never doing any one any good. If they take up good works, they can't drop them entirely to wait on you. Gillian does give up a great deal, and it would be kinder to forbear a little, and not treat all she does as an injury to yourself.'

'I only meant to get a rise out of her.'

'You are quite welcome to do that, provided it is done in good nature. Gill is quite sound stuff enough to be laughed at! But, I say, my Japs, I should prefer your letting Dolores alone; she has not learned to be laughed at yet, and has not come even to the stage for being taught to bear it.'

'She looks fit to turn the cream sour,' observed Jasper. 'I say, mamma, you don't want me to go on this shopping business, do you?'

'Not by any means, sir.'

Happily, the chance of a day's rabbit shooting presented itself at a warren some miles off, and Harry undertook the care of Wilfred, who gave his word of honour to obey implicitly and take no liberties with the guns. Fergus would gladly have gone with them, but he was still young enough to be sensible of the attractions of toy-shops. Only Primrose had to be left to the nursery, and there was no need to waste pity on her, for on such an occasion Mrs. Halfpenny would relax her mood, and lay herself out to be agreeable, when she had exhausted her forebodings about her leddyship making herself ill for a week gaun rampaging about with all the bairns, as if she was no better than one herself.

'I shall let Miss Mohun do most of the rampaging, nurse; but, if it is fine, will you take Miss Primrose into the town and let her choose her own cards. I have given her a florin, and if you make the most of that for her, she will be as happy as going with us.'

'That I will, my leddy. Bairns is easy content when ye ken how to sort 'em.'

'And, nurse, I believe there will be a box from Sir Jasper at the station. It may come home in the waggonette that takes us. Will you and Macrae get it safe into the store-room, for I don't want the children to see it too soon?'

There was nothing but satisfaction in the house on the morning of the expedition. The untimely candle-light breakfast was only a fresh element of delight, and so was the paling gas at the station, the round, red sun peeping out through a yellow break between grey sky and greyer woods; the meeting Miss Hacket in her fur cloak, the taking of the tickets, the coughing of the train, the tumbling into one of the many empty carriages, the triumphant start,—all seemed as fresh and delicious as if the young people had never taken a journey before in all their lives. The fog in the valleys, the sleepy villages, the half-roused stations, all gave rise to exclamations, and nothing was regretted but that the windows would get clouded over.

Even the waiting at the junction had its charms, for it was enlivened by a supplementary breakfast on rolls and milk! and at a few minutes past eleven the train was drawing up at Rockstone, and Aunt Jane, sealskins and all, was beckoning from the platform, hurrying after the carriage as it swept past, and holding out a hand to jump the party from the door.

There she was, ready to take them to the most charming and cheapest shops, where the coins burning in those five pockets would go the furthest. Go in a cab? No, I thank you, it is far more delightful to walk. So mamma and Miss Hacket were stowed away in the despised vehicle, to make the purchases that nobody cared about, or which were to be unseen and unknown till the great day; while Aunt Jane undertook to guide the young people through the town, for her house was at the other end of it securing the Christmas-cards on the way, if nothin' else. For, though all the cards and gifts to mamma, and a good many besides, were of domestic manufacture, some had to be purchased, and she knew, this wonderful woman, where to get cards of former seasons at reduced prices to suit their youthful finances.

Considerable patience was requisite before all the choices were made, and the balance cast between cards and presents, and Miss Mohun got her quartette past all the shop windows, to the seaside villa, shut in by tamarisks, which Aunt Adeline believed to be the only place that suited her health. Mamma and Miss Hacket had already arrived, and filled the little vestibule with parcels and boxes.

Then the early dinner! The aunts had anticipated their Christmas turkey for that goodly company to help them eat it, but afterwards there was only time for a mince pie all round; for more than half the work remained to be done by all except mamma, who would stay and rest with Aunt Ada, having finished all that could not be deputed.

However, first she had a conference in private with Aunt Jane, who undertook therein to come to Silverton for Valetta's birthday, and add astonishment and mystery sufficient to satisfy such of the public as were weary of Christmas-trees. She added, however, 'You will think I am always at you. Lily, but did you know that Flinders is living at Darminster?'

'No; but it is five and twenty miles off, and he has never troubled us.'

'Don't be too secure. He is in connection with that low paper—the Politician—which methinks, is the place where those remarkable poems of Miss Constance's have appeared.'

'Is it not the way of poetry of that calibre to see the light in county papers?'

'This seems to me of a lower calibre than is likely to get in without private interest.'

'But to my certain knowledge the child has neither written to, nor heard of the man all this time,'

'You don't know what goes on with her bosom friend.'

'I am certain Miss Hacket would connive at nothing underhand. Besides, I have never seen any thing sly or deceitful in poor Dolores. She will not make friends with us, that is all, and that may be our fault.'

'I only say, look out, you unsuspicious dame!'

'Now, Jenny, satisfy my curiosity as to how you know all this. I am sure I never showed you those effusions. We have had trouble enough about them, for the children cut them up in a way Dolores has never forgiven.'

'Oh! Miss Hacket sent them to me, to ask if 'Mollsey to her Babe' and 'The Canary' might not be passed on to Friendly Leaves. And as to Flinders, when I went to the G.F.S. Conference at Darminster I met the man full in the street, and, of course, I inquired afterwards how he came there. So there's nothing preternatural about it.'

'It is well you did not live two hundred years ago, or you would certainly have been burnt for a witch.'

'See what a witch I shall make on the 28th! But I hear those unfortunate children dancing and prancing with impatience on the stairs. I must go, before they have driven Ada distracted.'

What would the two aunts have said, could they have seen Dolores and Constance, at that moment partaking of the most elaborate meal the Darminster refreshment-room could supply, at a little round marble table, in company with Mr. Flinders! They had not been obliged to start nearly so early as the other party, as the journey was much shorter, and with no change of line, so they had quietly walked to the station by ten o'clock, arrived at Darminster at half-past eleven, and have been met by the personage whom Dolores recognized as Uncle Alfred. Constance was a little disappointed not to see something more distinguished, and less flashy in style, but he was so polite and complimentary, and made such touching allusions to his misfortunes and his dear sister, that she soon began to think him exceedingly interesting, and pitied him greatly when he said he could not take them to his lodgings—they were not fit for his niece or her friend, who had done him a kindness for which he could never be sufficiently grateful, in affording him a glimpse of his dear sister's child. It made Dolores wince, for she never could bear the mention of her mother, it was like touching a wound, and the old sensation of discomfort and dislike to her uncle's company began to grow over her again, now that she was not struggling against Mohun opposition to her meeting him. He lionized them about the town, but it was a foggy, drizzly day, one of those when the fringe of sea-coast often enjoys finer weather than inland places; the streets were very sloppy, and Dolores and Constance did not do much beyond purchasing a few cards and some presents at a fancy shop, as they had agreed to do, to serve as an excuse for their expedition in case it could not be kept a secret, and most of the visit was made in the waiting-room at the station, or walking up and down the platform. As to the grand point, Mr. Flinders told Constance that her tale was talented and striking, full of great excellence; she might hope for success equal to Ouida's—but that he had found it quite impossible to induce a publisher to accept a work by an unknown author, unless she advanced something. He could guarantee the return, but she must entrust him with thirty pounds. Poor Constance! it was a fatal blow; she had not thirty pounds in the world; she doubted if she could raise the sum, even by her sister's help. Then Mr. Flinders sighed, and thought that if he represented the circumstances, the firm might be content with twenty—nay, even fifteen. Constance cheered up a little. She did think she could make up fifteen, after the 21st, when certain moneys became due, which she shared with her sister. She would be left very bare all the spring—but what was that to the return she was promised? Only Mr. Flinders impressed on her the necessity of secrecy —even from her sister—since, he said, if he were once known to have obtained such terms for a young authoress, he should be besieged for ever!

'But, Uncle Alfred,' said Dolores, 'surely my father and mother, and all the other people I have known, did not pay to get their things published.'

'My dear niece, you speak as one who has been with persons of high and established fame—the literary aristocracy, in fact. The doors once opened, Miss Hacket will, like them, make her own terms; but such doors, like many others, are only to be opened by a silver key.'

There were other particulars which he talked over with the authoress in a promenade on the platform while Dolores was left in the waiting-room; but afterwards he indulged his niece with a tete-a-tete, asking her father's address, and mourning over the length of time it would take to obtain an answer from Fiji. Mr. Mohun had promised to help him, solemnly and kindly promised, for the sake of her whom they had both loved so much, and here he was, cut off and quite in extremity. Unfortunate as usual, through his determined enemies, a company in which he had shares had collapsed, he was penniless till his salary from the Politician became due in March. Meanwhile, he should be expelled from his lodging and brought to ruin if he could not raise a few pounds—even one.

Dolores had nearly two pounds in her purse. Her father had left her amply provided, and she had not much opportunity of spending. She knew he had seen the gold when she was shopping, and when she had paid for the refreshments, which of course she had found she had to do. With some hesitation she said, 'If thirty shillings would be of any good to you—'

'My dear, generous child, your dear mother's own daughter! It will be the saving of me temporarily! But among all your wealthy relatives, surely, considering your father's promise, you could obtain some advance until he can be communicated with!'

'If he is still in New Zealand, we could telegraph, and hear directly. He did not know how long he should be there, for the ship had something to be done to it.'

This did not suit Mr. Flinders. Such telegrams were very expensive, and it was too uncertain whether Mr. Mohun would be at Auckland. Surely, Lady Merrifield, whose husband was shaking the pagoda tree, would make an advance if she knew the circumstances.

'I don't think she would,' said Dolores, 'I don't think they are very rich. There is only one horse and one little pony, and my cousins have such very tiny allowances.'

'Haughty and poor! Stuck up and skimping. Yes, I understand. But I am not asking from her, only an advance, on your father's promise, which he would be certain to repay. Yes, quite certain! It is only a matter of time. It would save me at the present moment from utter ruin and destruction that would have broken your dear mother's heart. Oh! Mary, what I lost in you.' Then, as perhaps he saw reflection on Dolores's face, he added, 'She is gone, the only person who took an interest in me, so it matters the less, and when you hear again of your unhappy uncle you will know what drove him—'

'If it was only an advance—I have a cheque,' began Dolores. 'If seven pounds would do you any good—'

'It would be salvation!' he exclaimed.

'Father left it with me,' pursued Dolores, considering, 'in case Professor Muhlwasser went on with his great book of coloured plates of microscopic marine zoophytes, and sent it in. I was to keep this and pay with it—'

'Oh! Muhlwasser! you need not trouble about him. I saw his death in the paper a month ago.'

'Then I really think I might send you the cheque, and write to my father why I did so.'

'Ah! Dolly, I knew that your mother's daughter could never desert me.'

More followed of the same kind, tending to make Dolores feel that she was doing a heroically generous thing, and stifling the lurking sense in her mind that she had no right to dispose of her father's money without his consent. The December day began to close in, the gas was lighted, Constance was seen disconsolately peeping out at the waiting- room door to see whether the private conference were over. They joined her again, and Mr. Flinders discoursed about the envy and jealousy of critics, and success being only attained by getting into a certain clique, till she began to look rather frightened; but reassured by the voluble list of names and papers to which he assured her of recommendations. Then he began to be complimentary, and she, to put on the silly tituppy kind of face and tone wherewith she had talked to the curates at the festival. Dolores began to find this very dull, and to feel neglected, perhaps also cross, and doubts came across her whether she might not get into a dreadful scrape about the money, which she certainly had no right to dispose of. She at last broke in with, 'Uncle Alfred, are you quite sure Professor Muhlwasser is dead?'

'Bless your heart, child, he's as dead as Harry the Eighth,' said Mr. Flinders in haste;' died at Berlin, of fatty degeneration of the heart! Well, as I was saying, Miss Constance—'

'But, uncle, I was thinking—'

'Hush!' as a couple of ladies and a whole train of nurses and children invaded the waiting-room, 'it won't do to talk of such little matters in public places, you know. Would you not like a cup of tea, Miss Constance. Will you allow me to be your cavalier?'

People were beginning to arrive in expectation of the coming train, and talk was not possible in the throng; at least, Mr. Flinders did not make it so. At last the train swept up, and he was hurrying to find places for the ladies, when there was a moment's glimpse of a handsome moustached face at a smoking-carriage window. Dolores started, and had almost exclaimed, 'Uncle Reginald;' but before the words were out of her mouth, Mr. Flinders had drawn her on swiftly, among all the numbers of people getting out and getting in, hurled her into a distant carriage, handed Constance in after her, and muttering something about forgetting an appointment, he vanished, without any of the arrangements about foot-warmers that he had promised.