more valuable specimens, or, as she called them, 'nasty stones' and bits of dirty coal, within his socks.
Much more information as to mines, coal, or copper, was to be gained from him than as to Cousin David, or Harry, or Jasper, who had spent the last ten days of his holidays at Coalham, which had procured for Fergus the felicity of a second underground expedition. It was left to his maturer judgment and the next move to decide how many of his specimens were absolutely worthless; it was only stipulated that he and Valetta should carry them, all and sundry, up to the lumber-room, and there arrange them as he chose;-Aunt Jane routing out for him a very dull little manual of mineralogy, and likewise a book of Maria Hack's, long since out of print, but wherein 'Harry Beaufoy' is instructed in the chief outlines of geology in a manner only perhaps inferior to that of 'Madame How and Lady Why,' which she reserved for a birthday present. Meantime Rockstone and its quarries were almost as excellent a field of research as the mines of Coalham, and in a different line.
'How much nicer it is to be a boy than a girl!' sighed Valetta, as she beheld her junior marching off with all the dignity of hammer and knapsack to look up Alexis White and obtain access to the heaps of rubbish, which in his eyes held as infinite possibilities as the diamond fields of Kimberley. And Alexis was only delighted to bestow on him any space of daylight when both were free from school or from work, and kept a look-out for the treasures he desired. Of course, out of gratitude to his parents-or was it out of gratitude to his sister? Perhaps Fergus could have told, if he had paid the slightest attention to such a trifle, how anxiously Alexis inquired when Miss Gillian was expected to return. Moreover, he might have told that his other model, Stebbing, pronounced old Dick White a beast and a screw, with whom his brother Frank was not going to stop.
Gillian came back a fortnight later, having been kept at Rowthorpe, together with Mrs. Grinstead, for a family festival over the double marriage in Ceylon, after which she spent a few days in London, so as to see her grandmother, Mrs. Merrifield, who was too infirm for an actual visit to be welcome, since her attendant grandchild, Bessie Merrifield, was so entirely occupied with her as to have no time to bestow upon a guest of more than an hour or two. Gillian was met at the station by her aunt, and when all her belongings had been duly extracted, proving a good deal larger in bulk than when she had left Rockstone, and both were seated in the fly to drive home through a dismal February Fill-dyke day, the first words that were spoken were,
'Aunt Jane, I ought to tell you something.'
Hastily revolving conjectures as to the subject of the coming confession, Miss Mohun put herself at her niece's service.
'Aunt Jane, I know I ought to have told you how much I was seeing of the Whites last autumn.'
'Indeed, I know you wished to do what you could for them.'
'Yes,' said Gillian, finding it easier than she expected. 'You know Alexis wants very much to be prepared for Holy Orders, and he could not get on by himself, so I have been running down to Kalliope's office after reading to Lily Giles, to look over his Greek exercises.'
'Meeting him?'
'Only sometimes. But Kally did not like it. She said you ought to know, and that was the reason she would not come into the G.F.S. She is so good and honourable, Aunt Jane.'
'I am sure she is a very excellent girl,' said Aunt Jane warmly. 'But certainly it would have been better to have these lessons in our house. Does your mother know?'
'Yes,' said Gillian, 'I wrote to her all I was doing, and how I have been talking to Kally on Sunday afternoons through the rails of Mr. White's garden. I thought she could telegraph if she did not approve, but she does not seem to have noticed it in my letters, only saying something I could not make out-about 'if you approved.''
'And is that the reason you have told me?'
'Partly, but I got the letter before the holidays. I think it has worked itself up, Aunt Jane, into a sense that it was not the thing. There was Kally, and there was poor Valetta's mess, and her justifying herself by saying I did more for the Whites than you knew, and altogether, I grew sorry I had begun it, for I was sure it was not acting honestly towards you, Aunt Jane, and I hope you will forgive me.'
Miss Mohun put her arm round the girl and kissed her heartily.
'My dear Gill, I am glad you have told me! I dare say I seemed to worry you, and that you felt as if you were watched; I will do my very best to help you, if you have got into a scrape. I only want to ask you not to do anything more till I can see Kally, and settle with her the most suitable way of helping the youth.'
But do you think there is a scrape, aunt? I never thought of that, if you forgave me.'
'My dear, I see you did not; and that you told me because you are my Lily's daughter, and have her honest heart. I do not know that there is anything amiss, but I am afraid young ladies can't do-well, impulsive things without a few vexations in consequence. Don't be so dismayed, I don't know of anything, and I cannot tell you how glad I am of your having spoken out in this way.'
'I feel as if a load were off my back!' said Gillian.
And a bar between her and her aunt seemed to have vanished, as they drove up the now familiar slope, and under the leafless copper beeches. Blood is thinker than water, and what five months ago had seemed to be exile, had become the first step towards home, if not home itself, for now, like Valetta, she welcomed the sound of her mother's voice in her aunt's. And there were Valetta and Fergus rushing out, almost under the wheels to fly at her, and Aunt Ada's soft embraces in the hall.
The first voice that came out of the melee was Valetta's. 'Gill is grown quite a lady!'
'How much improved!' exclaimed Aunt Ada.
'The Bachfisch has swum into the river,' was Aunt Jane's comment.
'She'll never be good for anything jolly-no scrambling!' grumbled Fergus.
'Now Fergus! didn't Kitty Somerville and I scramble when we found the gate locked, and thought we saw the spiteful stag, and that he was going to run at us?'
'I'm afraid that was rather on compulsion, Gill.'
'It wasn't the spiteful stag after all, but we had such a long way to come home, and got over the park wall at last by the help of the limb of a tree. We had been taking a bit of wedding-cake to Frank Somerville's old nurse, and Kitty told her I was her maiden aunt, and we had such fun-her uncle's wife's sister, you know.'
'We sent a great piece of our wedding-cake to the Whites,' put in Valetta. 'Fergus and I took it on Saturday afternoon, but nobody was at home but Mrs. White, and she is fatter than ever.'
'I say, Gill, which is the best formation, Vale Leston or Rowthorpe?'
'Oh, nobody is equal to Geraldine; but Kitty is a dear thing.'
'I didn't mean that stuff, but which had the best strata and specimens ?'
'Geological, he means-not of society,' interposed Aunt Jane.
'Oh yes! Harry said he had gone geology mad, and I really did get you a bit of something at Vale Leston, Fergus, that Mr. Harewood said was worth having. Was it an encrinite? I know it was a stone-lily.'
'An encrinite! Oh, scrumptious!'
Then ensued such an unpacking as only falls to the lot of home-comers from London, within the later precincts of Christmas, gifts of marvellous contrivance and novelty, as well as cheapness, for all and sundry, those reserved for others almost as charming to the beholders as those which fell to their own lot. The box, divided into compartments, transported Fergus as much as the encrinite; Valetta had a photograph-book, and, more diffidently, Gillian presented Aunt Ada with a graceful little statuette in Parian, and Aunt Jane with the last novelty in baskets. There were appropriate keepsakes for the maids, and likewise for Kalliope and Maura. Aunt Jane was glad to see that discretion had prevailed so as to confine these gifts to the female part of the White family. There were other precious articles in reserve for the absent; and the display of Gillian's own garments was not without interest, as she had been to her first ball, under the chaperonage of Lady Somerville, and Mrs. Grinstead had made her white tarletan available by painting it and its ribbons with exquisite blue nemophilas, too lovely for anything so fleeting.
Mrs. Grinstead and her maid had taken charge of the damsel's toilette at Rowthorpe, had perhaps touched up her dresses, and had certainly taught her how to put them on, and how to manage her hair, so that though it had not broken out into fringes or tousles, as if it were desirable to imitate savages 'with foreheads marvellous low,' the effect was greatly improved. The young brown-skinned, dark-eyed face, and rather tall figure were the same, even the clothes the very same chosen under her aunt Ada's superintendence, but there was an indescribable change, not so much that of fashion as of distinction, and something of the same inward growth might be gathered from her conversation.
All the evening there was a delightful outpouring. Gillian had been extremely happy, and considerably reconciled
