And but for Miss Mildmay's being particularly busy that week, and very engrossed by some unexpected difficulties which had arisen in connection with one of her benevolent works, she could scarcely have failed to notice Jacinth's extremely icy manner and unusual silence.

But on Friday morning came a thaw.

Miss Mildmay looked up with a smile--her smiles were somewhat rare, but not without a certain charm--as the girls entered the dining-room, _even_ though they were too late for prayers.

'We are so sorry, Aunt Alison,' said Frances eagerly. 'We _just_ got to the door in time to be too late.'

'Well, I must forgive you, for I cannot say that it often happens.

And--I have something to tell you, Jacinth,' was the gracious reply.

Two things had pleased Miss Mildmay that morning: a letter with the welcome news that, thanks to her judicious management, the difficulty alluded to had been got over, and another letter from Lady Myrtle Goodacre, with a cordial invitation to her elder niece. For Miss Mildmay herself, though it was not her way to express such things, had felt a little annoyed and considerably surprised at no further communication from the owner of Robin Redbreast.

Now, however, all was cleared up. The old lady had been ill, 'otherwise,' she wrote with studied courtesy, 'she had hoped before this to have had the pleasure of calling.' But under the circ.u.mstances she felt sure that Miss Mildmay would excuse her, and in proof of this, would she allow her niece Jacinth to spend Sunday at Robin Redbreast? by which she explained that she meant from Sat.u.r.day to Monday morning.

'My carriage shall call for her about noon,' wrote Lady Myrtle, 'and she shall be sent home, or straight to school, at any hour she names on Monday.'

Jacinth's eyes sparkled. This was just the sort of thing she had been hoping for, but with the self-restraint peculiar to her, unusual in one so young, she said nothing till her aunt directly addressed her, after reading aloud Lady Myrtle's note.

'Well, what do you say to it? Would you like to go?' asked Miss Mildmay.

'Very much indeed,' Jacinth replied, 'except'----And as her eyes fell on her sister she hesitated. 'I wish Frances had been invited too,' she was on the point of saying, but she changed the words into, 'I hope Frances won't be dull without me.'

'Oh no, don't think about that,' said the younger girl. 'I really and truly would not like to go; I shouldn't care about it in the least, and I am _very_ glad I'm not asked.'

And Jacinth saw that Frances thoroughly meant what she said.

Before the day was over, Frances felt still more glad that she had not been included in the invitation, for as soon as morning lessons were finished, and the day-scholars were getting ready to go, Bessie Harper came running to her with a letter in her hand.

'This is for you, Frances,' she said. 'It is from my sister Camilla, who was here, you know, when you first came, for a little.'

Frances was staring at the letter in surprise.

'I scarcely knew your sister at all,' she said. 'She was so big compared with me--even with Jacinth.'

'Ah well, you will understand when you've read it. It came inside one to me,' said Bessie. 'It'll be all right when you've read it. But I must go.' And off she ran.

Frances looked again at the envelope and then deposited the letter in her pocket. She had a feeling that she would read it when she was alone, for she began to have some idea what it was about. She read it at home that afternoon. It ran as follows:

SOUTHCLIFF, _October 7th_.

MY DEAR FRANCES--I am writing to you instead of my mother, for as you and I were, though only for a short time, school-fellows, we think perhaps I can explain better what Bessie's letter makes us think necessary to say. Mother is not vexed with Margaret for what she told you, for there is nothing secret about us or our history, though there have been sad things in father's family long ago, as you know.

Bessie told us of your kind feelings about us, and though I saw so little of you, I can well believe them. But with regard to our great-aunt, both my father and mother hope she will hear nothing about us. Father has long left off any thought of friendly relations with her. Of course there is no reason why our name should not be mentioned to her by yourself, or your sister, if it happened to come up in conversation; but we should be sorry for her to think we murmured about being poor, or that any of us ever thought of her as a rich relation who might help us. So we shall all be very glad indeed if you will try to forget that you know anything of us Harpers except as school-fellows who will always be pleased to count you a true friend. Mother wishes you to do just what you think best about showing this letter to your sister or not. And of course you will tell your mother anything or everything about the matter. Yours affectionately,

CAMILLA HARPER.

Frances gave a sigh.

'I won't show it to Jacinth,' she thought. 'Aunt Alison said it was better for her not to speak about the Harpers to Lady Myrtle, so there's no use in saying anything about them. And it's more comfortable not to have something in your head you're not to tell. I suppose I must try to put it all out of my head, but it _would_ have been nice to help to make that old aunt of theirs like them. I'll put the letter in an envelope ready addressed to mamma--that'll keep any one from touching it--and I'll send it to her in my next letter.'

But it called for some self-control not to tell it all to her sister, even at the risk of her displeasure. And Frances was conscious of a very slight feeling of relief when Jacinth, evidently in high spirits, though quiet as she always was, set off in state the next day for her visit to Robin Redbreast.

She had made up her mind to enjoy herself and to be pleased with everything, and it was not difficult to carry out this programme.

Everything Lady Myrtle could think of to make her young guest feel at home had been done, and Jacinth was both quick to see this and most ready to appreciate it.

She drew a deep breath of satisfaction when she found herself seated in Lady Myrtle's comfortable brougham, which, though a trifle old-fashioned, was, like everything belonging to the Robin Redbreast establishment, thoroughly good of its kind.

'It is like being at Stannesley again,' thought Jacinth, 'only poor granny's carriage and horses, and old Simpson the coachman, weren't half so nice as all this is.'

And, to confess the truth, I think a pa.s.sing regret went through her that the road to her destination lay straight out from the town on the Market Square Place side, so that there was no chance of her meeting any of her school-fellows and giving them a smiling nod of recognition.

The door was opened by the neat parlour-maid, but behind her appeared--to do special honour to the young lady, no doubt--a functionary whom Jacinth had not seen before--no less a personage than Mr Thornley, Lady Myrtle's old, not to say aged butler. He came forward gently rubbing his hands, and bending with a decorous mixture of paternal solicitude and deference which Jacinth by no means objected to, though it made her inclined to smile a little.

'Miss Mildmay, I presume?'

'Miss Mildmay' was quite equal to the occasion. She bent her head graciously.

'Her ladyship is awaiting you in her boudoir, if you will have the goodness to follow me,' the old man proceeded.

They were standing in the hall. It was large--at least it seemed so in comparison with the impression given by the outside of the house, which Jacinth knew so well, and which was really cottage-like. The hall was wainscoted in oak half-way up, where the panels met a bluish-green j.a.panese-looking paper. A really old oriental paper it was, such as is not even nowadays to be procured in England, so thickly covered with tracery of leaves and flowers and birds and b.u.t.terflies in a delightful tangle, that the underlying colour was more felt than seen. A short staircase of wide shallow steps ran up one side, disappearing apparently into the wall, and up this staircase, rather to Jacinth's surprise--for there were several doors in the hall leading, no doubt, to the princ.i.p.al ground-floor rooms--stepped Thornley in a gingerly manner till he reached the little landing at the top. There he threw open a door, papered like the walls so cleverly as to be invisible when closed, though it was a good-sized door--wide and high. And as soon as the girl, following behind, caught sight of the vista now revealed, she wondered no more, as she had been doing, at Lady Myrtle's choosing an up-stairs room for her boudoir.

'In a town it would be different,' Jacinth had been saying to herself, 'but in the country it's so much nicer to be able to get out into the garden at once.'

But she did not understand the peculiar architecture of Robin Redbreast.

A glow of colour met her eyes, for the door in the wall opened on to a gallery, three sides of which ran round an inner hall on the ground-floor, while the fourth--that facing her--was all conservatory, and conservatory of the most perfect kind. The girl started, half-dazzled by the unexpected radiance, and drew a quick breath of satisfaction, as the butler pa.s.sed along the side of the gallery and threw open a door leading in among the flowers--she, following closely, lingered a moment while the old servant pa.s.sed on, partly to give him time to announce her, partly to enjoy for half an instant the fragrance and beauty around her.

Then came a voice, and a figure in the inner doorway--the figure that already seemed so familiar to her, though she had seen it but once.

'My dear child--my dear Jacinth,' and she felt two kind arms thrown round her, and the soft withered cheek of the old lady pressed against her own. 'This is delightful--to have you all to myself--my own child for the time.'

Jacinth's usually cold unimpulsive nature was strongly moved; there is always something impressive and touching in the emotion of the aged. And Lady Myrtle, one felt by instinct, was rarely demonstrative.

The girl looked up in her face, and there came a slight mistiness over the hazel eyes, which her new old friend seemed to know so well--oh so well!--the sight of them carried her back half a century; and, above all, when Jacinth began to speak, she felt as if all the intervening years were a dream, and that she was again a girl herself, listening to the voice of Jacinth Moreland.

'I am so very pleased to come. I have been longing to see you again,'

said her young guest. Thornley had discreetly withdrawn. 'And how lovely it is here! You don't know how I enjoy seeing flowers again like these.'

'It _is_ pretty, isn't it?' said Lady Myrtle, pleased by the frank admiration. 'In cold weather I am sometimes shut up a good deal, and my garden is my great delight. So I tried to make myself a little winter garden, you see. I have had to stay up here the last few days, but I hope to go about again as usual to-morrow. And of course I shall go down to luncheon and dinner to-day. I waited to ask you to come, my dear, till I was better. I could not have let you be all by yourself in the dining-room.'

'Oh,' exclaimed Jacinth, with sudden compunction, 'I should have asked if you were better. How could I forget?'

'Why, you have not been two minutes here, my dear child. And I wrote that I was better. It was only a cold. But at my age, "only a cold" may come to be a great deal, and I have got into the way of taking care of myself, I scarcely know why; it is natural, I suppose, and after all, however alone one is, life is a gift. We must not throw it away. I am not _quite_ well yet'--she had coughed more than once while speaking--'but the weather is milder again.'

'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'a sort of St Martin's summer. I hope,' she added gently, 'you will let me wait upon you a little while I am here.

Wouldn't you like the door shut?'

Lady Myrtle smiled. She liked the allusion to St Martin's summer; it seemed like a good omen. Was this bright young life, so strangely a.s.sociated with her own youth, to bring back some spring-time to her winter?--was Jacinth to be a St Martin's summer to her?

'Thank you,' she said. 'Yes, please shut the outer door. Poor old Thornley often thinks he has closed it when he hasn't; his hands are so rheumatic. I like the door into the conservatory left open. Yes, that's right. And now come and talk to me for a few minutes before you take off your things. There is still half an hour to luncheon. Tell me what you have been doing these last few days--busy at lessons? That fair-haired little sister of yours doesn't look as if she _over_worked.'