'For shame. Gill!'
'I can't help it, mamma. If you had only seen their faces when the uproar came in a fresh gust! How they whispered, and some looked awe-struck. I thought I had better get rid of them, and come home myself; but Miss Hacket met me, and implored me to stay, and I was weak-minded enough to do so. I wish I hadn't, for it was only to be provoked past bearing. That horrid girl has poisoned even Miss Hacket's mind, and she thinks you have been hard on her darling. You did not know how nervous and timid dear Connie is!'
'Well, Gill, I confess she made me very angry, and I told her what I thought of her.'
'And that she didn't choose to hear!'
'Did you see her again?'
'No, I am thankful to say, I did not. But Miss Hacket would go on all tea-time, explaining and explaining for me to tell you how dear Connie is so affectionate and so easily led, and how Dolores came over her with persuasions, and deceived her. I declare I never liked Dolly so well before. At any rate, she doesn't make professions, and not a bit more fuss than she can help. And there was Miss Hacket getting brandy cherries and strong coffee, and I don't know what all, because dear Connie was so overcome, and dear Lady Merrifield was quite under a mistake, and so deceived by Dolores. I told Miss Hacket you were never under a mistake nor deceived.'
'You didn't, Gillian!'
'Yes, I did, and the stupid woman only wanted to kiss me (but I wouldn't let her) and said I was very right to stand up for my dear mamma. As if that had anything to do with it! What are you laughing at, mamma? Why, Uncle Regie is laughing, and Cousin Rotherwood! What is it?'
'At the two partisans who never stand up for their own families,' said Uncle Regie.
'But it's true!' cried Gillian.
'What! that I am never mistaken nor deceived?' said Lady Merrifield.
'Except when you took Miss Constance for a sensible woman, eh?' said her brother.
'That I never did! But I did take her for a moderately honourable one.'
'Well, that was a mistake,' owned Gillian. 'And Miss Hacket is as bad! There's no gratitude--'
'Hush!' broke in her mother; and Gillian stopped abashed, while Lady Merrifield continued, 'I won't have Miss Hacket abused. She is only blinded by sisterly affection.'
'I don't think I can go there again,' said Gillian, 'after what she said about you.'
'Nonsense!' said her mother. 'Don't be as bad as Constance in trying to make me angry by telling me all poor Dolly's grumblings.'
'Follow your mother's example, Gillian,' said Lord Rotherwood, 'and, if possible, never hear, certainly never attend to, what any one says of you behind your back.'
'Is said to have said of you, you should add, Rotherwood,' put in the colonel. 'It is a decree worse than eavesdropping.'
'Oh, Regie!' exclaimed his sister.
'Well, not perhaps for your own honour and conscience, but the keyhole is a more trustworthy medium than the reporter.'
'That's a strong way of stating it, but, at any rate, the keyhole has no temper nor imagination, or prejudice of its own,' said Lady Merrifield.
'No, and as far as it goes, it enables you to judge of the frame in which the words, even if correctly reported, were spoken,' added Colonel Mohun.
'The moral of which is,' said Lord Rotherwood, drolly, 'that Gillian is not to take notice of anyone's observations upon her unless she has heard them through the keyhole.'
'And so one would never hear them at all.'
'Q. E. D.,' said Lord Rotherwood. 'And now, Lily, do you. ever sing the two evening-hymns. Ken and Keble, now, as the family used to do on Sundays at the Old Court, long ere the days of 'Hymns Ancient and Modern'?
'Don't we?' said Lady Merrifield. 'Only all our best voices will be singing it at Rawul Pindee!'
And, as she struck a note on the piano, all the younger people still up, Mysie, Phyllis, Wilfred and Valetta, gathered round from the outer room to join in their evening Sunday delight. Fly put her hand into her father's and whispered, 'You told me about it, daddy.' He began to sing, but his voice thickened as he missed the tones once associated with it. And Lady Merrifield, too, nearly broke down as with all her heart she sang, hopefully,
'Now Lord, the gracious work begin.'
CHAPTER XVII. THE STONE MELTING.
It was with a strange feeling that Dolores woke on the New Year's morning, that something was very sad and strange, and yet that there was a sense of relief. For one thing, that terrible confession to her father was written, and was no longer a weight hanging over her. And though his answer was still to come, that was months away. There was Uncle Regie greatly displeased with her; there was Constance treating her as a traitor; there was the mischief done, and yet something hard and heavy was gone? Something sweet and precious had come in on her! Surely it was, that now she knew and felt that she could trust in Aunt Lilias-yes, and in Mysie. She got up, quite looking forward to meeting those gentle, brown eyes of her aunt's, that she seemed never before to have looked into, and to feeling the sweet, motherly kiss which had so mud, more meaning in it now, as almost to make up for Uncle Reginald's estrangement.
She even anticipated gladly those ten minutes alone with her aunt, which she used to dislike so much, hoping that the holiday-time would not hinder them. Really wishing to please her aunt, she had learnt her portion perfectly, and Lady Merrifield showed that she appreciated the effort, though still it was more a lesson than a reality.
'My dear!' she said, 'I am afraid this is another blow for you-it came this morning.'
It was the account from Professor Muhlwasser's German publisher, amounting to a few shillings more than six pounds. And an announcement that the books were on the way.
'Oh,' cried Dolores, 'I thought he was dead! He told me so! Uncle Alfred, I mean! And it was only to get the money! How could he be so wicked?'
'I am afraid that was all he cared for.'
'And what shall I do. Aunt Lily? Will you pay it, please, and take all my allowance till it is made up?'
'I think it will be more comfortable for you if I do something of that sort, though I don't think you should go entirely without money. You have a pound a quarter. I was going to give you yours at once.'
'Oh, take it-pray-'
'Suppose I give you five shillings, instead of twenty. I do not think it well to leave you with nothing for a year and a half, and this is nearly what Mysie has.'
'A shilling a month-very well. I wish I could pay it all at once!'
'No doubt you do, my dear, but this will keep you in mind for a long time what a dangerous thing you did in giving away money you had no right to dispose of.'
'Yes,' said Dolores. 'Mother earned money for him. I know she never took father's without asking him; but I couldn't earn, and couldn't ask.'
Lady Merrifield kissed her, for very joy, to hear no sullenness in her tone; and then all went to church together on the New Year's day that was to be the beginning of better things. Lord Rotherwood had just time to go before meeting the train which was to take him to High Court, leaving his Fly too much used to his absences to be distressed about them, and, in fact, somewhat crazy about a notion which Gillian had started that morning, of getting up a little play to surprise him when he came back for Twelfth Day, as he promised to do.
Mamma declared that if it was in French, and the words were learnt every morning before half-past eleven, it should supersede all other lessons; but such was the hatred of the whole boy faction to French, that they declared they had rather do rational sensible lessons twice over than learn such rot, and this carried the day. The drama proposed was that one in an old number of 'Aunt Judy,' where the village mayor is persuaded by the drummer to fine the girls for wearing lace caps. The French original existed in the house, and Fly started the idea that the male performers should speak English and the female French; but this was laughed down.
In the midst Uncle Reginald came to the door and called, 'Lilias, can you speak to me a minute?'
Lady Merrifield went out into the hall to him.
'Here's a policeman come over, Lily. They have got the fellow!'
'Flinders?'
