'What would Lady Rotherwood think of the liberty?' the displeased mood whispered to Gillian.
But Lady Rotherwood, presiding over her pretty Worcester tea-set, was quite ready to welcome any of the Merrifield friends. There were various people in the room besides Lady Merrifield and Mysie, who had just come in. There was the Admiral talking politics with Lord Rotherwood, and there was Clement Underwood, who had come with Harry from the city, and Bessie discussing with them boys' guilds and their amusements.
Gillian felt frantic. Would no one cast a thought on Alexis in prison? If he had been to be hanged the next day, her secret annoyance at their indifference to his fate could not have been worse.
And yet at the first opportunity Harry brought Mr. Underwood to talk to her about his choir-boys, and to listen to her account of the 7th Standard boy, a member of the most musical choir in Rockquay, and the highest of the high.
'I hope not cockiest of the cocky,' said Mr. Underwood, smiling. 'Our experience is that superlatives may often be so translated.'
'I don't think poor Theodore is cocky,' said Gillian; 'the Whites have always been so bullied and sat upon.'
'Is his name Theodore?' asked Mr. Underwood, as if he liked the name, which Gillian remembered to have seen on a cross at Vale Leston.
'Being sat upon is hardly the best lesson in humility,' said Harry.
'There's apt to be a reaction,' said Mr. Underwood; 'but the crack voice of a country choir is not often in that condition, as I know too well. I was the veriest young prig myself under those circumstances!'
'Don't be too hard on cockiness,' said Lord Rotherwood, who had come up to them, 'there must be consciousness of powers. How are you to fly, if you mustn't flap your wings and crow a little?'
'On a les defauts de ses qualites,' put in Lady Merrifield.
'Yes,' added Mr. Underwood. 'It is quite true that needful self- assertion and originality, and sense of the evils around-'
'Which the old folk have outgrown and got used to,' said Lord Rotherwood.
'May be condemned as conceit,' concluded Mr. Underwood.
'Ay, exactly as Eliab knew David's pride and the naughtiness of his heart,' said Lord Rotherwood. 'If you won't fight your giant yourself, you've no business to condemn those who feel it in them to go at him.'
'Ah! we have got to the condemnation of others, instead of the exaltation of self,' said Lady Merrifield.
'It is better to cultivate humility in one's self than other people, eh?' said the Marquis, and his cousin thought, though she did not say, that he was really the most humble and unself-conscious man she had ever known. What she did say was, 'It is a plant that grows best uncultivated.'
'And if you have it not by happy nature, what then?' said Clement Underwood.
'Then I suppose you must plant it, and there will be plenty of tears of repentance to water it,' returned she.
'Thank you,' said Clement. 'That is an idea to work upon.'
'All very fine!' sighed Gillian to Mysie, 'but oh, how about Alexis in prison! There's papa, now he has got rid of Fangs, actually going to walk off with Uncle Sam, and mamma has let Lady Rotherwood get hold of her. Will no- body care for anybody?'
'I think I would trust papa,' said Mysie.
He was not long gone, and when he came back he said, 'You may give me that letter, Gillian. I posted a card to tell your aunt she should hear to-morrow.'
All that Gillian could say to her mother in private that evening consisted of, 'Oh, mamma, mamma,' but the answer was, 'I have heard about it from papa, my dear; I am glad you told him. He is thinking what to do. Be patient.'
Externally, awe and good manners forced Gillian to behave herself; but internally she was so far from patient, and had so many bitter feelings of indignation, that she felt deeply rebuked when she came down next morning to find her father hurrying through his breakfast, with a cab ordered to convey him to the station, on his way to see what could be done for Alexis White.
That day Gillian had her confidential talk with her mother-a talk that she never forgot, trying to dig to the roots of her failures in a manner that only the true mother-confessor of her own child can perhaps have patience and skill for, and that only when she has studied the creature from babyhood. The concatenation, ending (if it was so to end) in the committal to Avoncester Jail, and beginning with the interview over the rails, had to be traced link by link, and was almost as long as 'the house that Jack built.'
'And now I see,' said Gillian, 'that it all came of a nasty sort of antagonism to Aunt Jane. I never guessed how like I was to Dolores, and I thought her so bad. But if I had only trusted Aunt Jane, and had no secrets, she would have helped me in it all, I know now, and never have brought the Whites into trouble.'
'Yes,' said Lady Merrifield; 'perhaps I should have warned you a little more, but I went off in such a hurry that I had no time to think. You children are all very loyal to us ourselves; but I suppose you are all rather infected by the modern spirit, that criticises when it ought to submit to authorities.'
'But how can one help seeing what is amiss? As some review says, how respect what does not make itself respectable? You know I don't mean that for my aunts. I have learnt now what Aunt Jane really is-how very kind and wise and clever and forgiving-but I was naughty enough to think her at first-'
'Well, what? Don't be afraid.'
'Then I did think she was fidgety and worrying-always at one, and wanting to poke her nose into everything.'
'Poor Aunt Jane! Those are the faults of her girlhood, which she has been struggling against all her life!'
'But in your time, mamma, would such difficulties really not have been seen-I mean, if she had been actually what I thought her?'
'I think the difference was that no faults of the elders were dwelt upon by a loyal temper. To find fault was thought so wrong that the defects were scarcely seen, and were concealed from ourselves as well as others. It would scarcely, I suppose, be possible to go back to that unquestioning state, now the temper of the times is changed; but I belong enough to the older days to believe that the true safety is in submission in the spirit as well as the letter.'
'I am sure I should have found it so,' said Gillian. 'And oh! I hope, now that papa is come, the Whites may be spared any more of the troubles I have brought on them.'
'We will pray that it may be so.' said her mother.
CHAPTER XIX. THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON
A telegram had been received in the morning, which kept Valetta and Fergus on the qui vive all day. Valetta was an unspeakable worry to the patient Miss Vincent, and Fergus arranged his fossils and minerals.
Both children flew out to meet their father at the gate, but words failed them as he came into the house, greeted the aunts, and sat down with Fergus on his knee, and Valetta encircled by his arm.
'Yes, Lilias is quite well, very busy and happy-with her first instalment of children.'
'I am so thankful that you are come,' said Adeline. 'Jane ventured to augur that you would, but I thought it too much to hope for.'
'There was no alternative,' said Sir Jasper.
'I infer that you halted at Avoncester.'
'I did so; I saw the poor boy.'
'What a comfort for his sister!'
'Poor fellow! Mine was the first friendly face he had seen, and he was almost overcome by it'-and the strong face quivered with emotion at the recollection of the boy's gratitude.
'He is a nice fellow,' said Jane. 'I am glad you have seen him, for neither Mr. White nor Rotherwood can believe that he is not utterly foolish, if not worse.'
'A boy may do foolish things without being a fool,' said Sir Jasper. 'Not that this one is such another as his father. I wish he were.'
'I suppose he has more of the student scholarly nature.'
'Yes. The enlistment, which was the making of his father, was a sort of moral suicide in him. I got him to tell me all about it, and I find that the idea of the inquest, and of having to mention you, you monkey, drove him frantic,
