Jacinth's brows contracted, and the lines of her delicate face hardened, but she said nothing--nothing really audible, that is to say, though a murmur escaped her of, 'I knew it had something to do with them; it is too bad.'

When she had finished, she looked up at her sister.

'There is a good deal more for you to explain,' she said, coldly. 'Mamma says you will do so--not that I want to hear it. And as you have got so thoroughly in the way of having secrets from me, and now that you have friends you care for more than me, I really don't see why I need to be mixed up in this affair at all.'

'Oh Ja.s.s, dear Ja.s.s, don't speak like that,' exclaimed Frances, the ever-ready tears starting to her eyes. 'I couldn't help it. Read again what mamma says.'

'I know what she says,' Jacinth replied. 'I don't need to read it again. I am waiting for you to tell me the whole.'

It was difficult, but Frances was eager to re-establish confidence with her sister. She told the whole--even how the old Christmas card in her pocket had brought up the subject of Robin Redbreast, and how Bessie had asked her to tell no one but her mother, if she could help it; then how Camilla's letter had repeated this, ending up by what had recently come to her knowledge of the increased troubles of the Harper family.

'Oh Ja.s.s,' she concluded, 'if we could help them somehow. I am so glad mamma has met that aunt of theirs--_isn't_ it lucky? Perhaps she'll be able now to manage something without vexing Captain and Mrs Harper.'

Jacinth lifted her head and looked at Frances. She was paler than usual.

'I really do think you must be a sort of an idiot,' she said.

'Otherwise, I should be forced to believe you had no real family affection at all. Surely the Harpers might teach you to have _that_, however much mischief they have made in other ways.'

Frances stared at her, dumb with perplexity.

'What _do_ you mean, Jacinth?' she said at last.

Jacinth for once lost her self-control.

'Do you not care for your own father and mother to get anything good?'

she said. 'Papa's life has been hard enough--so has ours--separated almost ever since we can remember from our parents. And it is all a question of money, to put it plainly, though it is horrid of you to force me to say it. Do you think papa, who is far from a young man now, stays out in that climate for pleasure--wearing himself out to be sure of his pension? And if Lady Myrtle chooses to treat _us_ as her relations--mamma, the daughter of her dearest friend--instead of the son of that bad, wretched brother of hers--why shouldn't she? And you would ruin everything by silly interference in behalf of people we have nothing to do with: very likely you'd do no good to _them_, and only offend her for ever with us. Do you understand _now_ what I mean?'

Frances was trembling, but she would not cry.

'Mamma does not see it that way,' she said. 'She is pleased and delighted at Lady Myrtle being so kind, but she _does_ care about the Harpers too. Read what she says,' and Frances hurriedly unfolded the letter again till she found the pa.s.sage she wanted.

This was what Mrs Mildmay said, after expressing her sympathy with all Frances had told her, and advising her now to tell the whole to Jacinth.

'I remember vaguely about the Harper family in the old days,' she wrote.

'I know that Lady Myrtle's two brothers caused her much trouble, especially the younger, really embittering her life. But for many years I have heard nothing of her or any of the family till just now, for a curious coincidence has happened. A few days before I got your long letter, enclosing Miss Harper's, and dear Jacinth's too, telling of her invitation to Robin Redbreast, I had met a Mrs Lyle, whose husband has got an appointment here. And Mrs Lyle is Captain Harper's sister. I like her very much, and we have already made great friends. She is very frank, and devoted to her brother and his family; and when she heard of my children being at Thetford, in talking, one thing led to another, so that I really knew all you tell me--and perhaps more. It will be rather difficult for you and Jacinth--for Ja.s.sie especially--to avoid all appearance of interference, as that would do harm on both sides. But still you may find opportunities of speaking warmly and admiringly of the Harper girls, whenever your school happens to be mentioned. That can do _no_ harm, and may even help to pave the way for bringing about a better state of things some day. For I do feel most interested in the Harpers, and every time we meet, Mrs Lyle and I talk about them, and all the troubles they have really so n.o.bly borne.'

Then Mrs Mildmay went on to speak of her pleasure in her children's having won Lady Myrtle's kindness, adding that she would look forward eagerly to the next letters, telling of Jacinth's visit.

'Marmy says,' she wrote, 'that it must have been a presentiment which made you all take such a fancy to that quaint old house, even though you only saw it from the outside.'

All this Frances read again boldly to her sister. Jacinth did not interrupt her, but listened in silence.

'Well,' she said, when Frances stopped, 'I told you I had read all mamma said.'

'Then why are you so angry with me?' demanded Frances bluntly. 'If I am a sort of an idiot, mamma is too.'

Jacinth did not reply.

'Mamma says you are not to attempt to interfere,' she said at last.

'I am not going to. I wouldn't do so for the Harpers' sake, much more than for Lady Myrtle's. The Harpers have trusted me, and I won't do anything they wouldn't like.'

'Well,' said Jacinth bitterly, 'you'd better write it all to mamma--all the horrid, calculating, selfish things I've said. You've got quite separated from me now, so that it really doesn't matter what you say of me.'

This was too much. Frances at last dissolved into tears and flung herself upon her sister, entreating her 'not to say such things,' to believe that n.o.body in the world--not Bessie or Margaret or _anybody_--could ever make up to her for her own dear Ja.s.s.

'You're not selfish,' she said. 'You're far more unselfish, really, than I am. For I never think of things. I see I've never thought enough of poor papa and mamma, and how hard it's been for them in many ways, though I did say to Bessie the other day that, whatever troubles they'd had, they'd not been parted from each other the way we've been.'

'I'm glad you said that,' Jacinth condescended to say, 'just to let them see that they're not the only people in the world who have to bear things.'

'Oh, they _don't_ think that,' said Frances. 'And Ja.s.s,' she went on, encouraged by her sister's softer tone, and encircling her neck fondly with her two arms as she sat, half on Jacinth's knee, half on the edge of her chair, 'I don't quite see why being sorry for the poor Harpers, and--and--wishing we could make Lady Myrtle feel so too, need make her leave off being kind to us too. That's how mamma sees it. I am not only thinking of the Harpers, Ja.s.s; indeed, I'm not. I'm looking forward more than I can tell you to what you said--that when papa and mamma come home, Lady Myrtle is going to invite us all to stay with her. Oh, it would be lovely!' and the little girl clasped her hands together. 'All the same,' she went on, 'I don't think I want ever to go to Robin Redbreast till that time comes. I can't feel natural there, and I'm afraid of vexing you or doing harm somehow.'

'It is not in our hands--not in mine, any way,' said Jacinth quietly.

'All you have told me makes no difference to me. I am not going to meddle, and I shall not mention the Harpers at all, if I can help it.'

'Not even in the way mamma says we might?' said Frances.

'No--not at all, if I can help it. I do not want to spoil the happiness of being with Lady Myrtle by bringing up disagreeable subjects. I shall tell mamma so when I write.'

Frances was silent. After all, she reflected, perhaps it did not much matter. Jacinth did not know Bessie and Margaret as _she_ did, and now that her sister understood the whole--the near relationship and the whole story, perhaps it _would_ be very difficult for her to come upon the subject naturally.

'Honor Falmouth says,' remarked Jacinth in a moment or two, 'that she has heard that perhaps the girls are not coming back to school after the Christmas holidays.'

'Oh,' exclaimed Frances, looking greatly troubled, 'oh, Ja.s.s, I do hope it's not true.'

'I should not be very sorry,' said Jacinth, 'except,' she added with some effort, 'except for your sake. And of course I have never said that they were not very nice girls. I know they are, only--it has been so tiresome and unlucky. I just wish we had never known them.'

'I wish sometimes we had never known Lady Myrtle,' said Frances. 'You and I have _never_ been--like this--with each other before, Ja.s.s.'

'Well, we needn't quarrel about it,' said her sister. 'Let's try to keep off the subject of the Harper family. For _I_ can do them no good.'

'Very well,' said Frances, though rather sadly. 'I wonder,' she went on thinking to herself--'I wonder why Bessie and Margaret are perhaps to leave school; they are getting on so well.'

She was too unpractical to guess at the truth--which Jacinth had thought it useless to mention as a part of Miss Falmouth's information--that their parents could no longer afford to pay for them.

'For to be gentlepeople, as they undoubtedly are in every sense of the word,' the girl had said, 'they are really _awfully_ poor. I have heard so from some people who know them at that place where they live. It is quite a little seaside place, where people who want to be quiet go for bathing in the summer. But the Harpers live there all the year round. It must be fearfully dull.'

'Yes,' Jacinth agreed, 'it can't be lively. Still, being poor isn't the only trouble in the world.'

'No,' Miss Falmouth replied, 'but I fear they have others too. Captain Harper is so delicate.'

Jacinth said no more. Honor Falmouth was a kind-hearted but not particularly thoughtful girl, and she forgot all about the Harpers in five minutes. Her visit to Robin Redbreast had never come to pa.s.s, and Jacinth did not very specially regret it. She liked best to be alone with Lady Myrtle. So the relationship of the young Harpers to the old lady had never come to Honor's knowledge, as it might perhaps have done if her attention had been drawn to Lady Myrtle by visiting at her house.

And at Christmas Honor was leaving school.

CHAPTER X.

THE HARPERS' HOME.