At least, such was the charitable interpretation. Harry strongly suspected that the imp had been a concealed spectator all the time, and had particularly relished the mischief of the discomfiture, which, after all, was much greater on the part of the Vicar than any one else, as he was a rather stiff, old-fashioned gentleman. Lady Merrifield only laughed, said she had been beguiled into wet day sports with the children, begged him to excuse her for a moment or two, and tripped away, followed by Gillian to help her, quickly reappearing in her lace cap as the graceful matron, even before Mr. Leadbitter had quite done blushing and quoting to Harry 'desipere in loco,' as he was a.s.sisted off with his dripping, shiny waterproof.

After all no harm would have been done if--Harry and Gillian being both off guard--Valetta had not exclaimed most unreasonably in her disappointment--

'I knew the fun would be spoilt the instant Dolores came in for it.'

'Yes, Mr. Murderer, you squashed my little finger and all but smothered me,' cried Fergus, throwing himself on Dolores and dropping her down.

'Don't! don't! you know you mustn't,' screamed valiant Mysie, flying to the rescue.

'Murderers! Murderers must be done for,' shouted Wilfred, falling upon Mysie.

'You shan't hurt my Mysie,' bellowed Valetta, hurling herself upon Wilfred.

And there they were all in a heap, when Gillian, summoned by the shrieks, came down from helping her mother, pulled Valetta off Wilfred, Wilfred off Mysie, Mysie off Fergus, and Fergus off Dolores, who was discovered at the bottom with an angry, frightened face, and all her hair standing on end.

'Are you hurt, Dolores? I am very sorry,' said Gillian. 'It was very naughty. Go up to the nursery, Fergus and Val, and be made fit to be seen.'

They obeyed, crestfallen. Dolores felt herself all over. It would have been gratifying to have had some injury to complain of, but she had fallen on the prince's cushions, and there really was none. So she only said, 'No, I'm not hurt, though it is a wonder;' and off she walked to bolt herself into her own room again, there to brood on Valetta's speech.

It worked up into a very telling and pathetic history for Constance's sympathizing ears on Sunday, especially as it turned out to be one of the things not reported to mamma.

And on that day, Dolores, being reminded of it by her friend, sent a letter to Mr. Flinders to the office of the paper for which he worked in London, to tell him that if he wished to write to her as he had promised he must address under cover to Miss Constance Hacket, Cas.e.m.e.nt Cottage, as otherwise Aunt Lilias would certainly read all his letters.

CHAPTER IX. -- LETTERS

Constance Hacket was very much excited about the address to Dolores's letter to her uncle. She had not noticed it at the moment that it was written, but she did when she posted it; and the next time she could get her young friend alone, she eagerly demanded what Mr. Flinders had to do with the Many Tongues, and why her niece wrote to him at the office.

'He writes the criticisms,' said Dolores, magnificently; for though she despised pluming herself on any connection with a marquess, she did greatly esteem that with the world of letters. 'You know we are all literary.'

'Oh yes, I know! But what kind of criticisms do you mean? I suppose it is a very clever paper?'

'Of course it it,' said Dolores, 'but I don't think I ever saw it.

Father never takes in society papers. I believe he does criticisms on plays and novels. I know he always has tickets for all the theatres and exhibitions.

She did not say how she did know it, for a pang smote her as she remembered dimly a scene, when her father had forbidden her mother to avail herself of escort thus obtained. Nor was she sure that the word all was accurately the fact; but it was delightful to impress Constance, who cried, 'How perfectly delicious! I suppose he can get any article into his paper!'

'Oh yes, of course,' said Dolores.

'Did your dear mother write in it?'

'No; it was not her line. She used to write metaphysical and scientific articles in the first-cla.s.s reviews and magazines, and the Many Tongues is what they call a society paper, you know.'

'Oh yes, I know. There are charming things about the Upper Ten Thousand.

They tell all that is going on, but I hardly ever can see one. Mary won't take in anything about Church Bells, and we get the Guardian when it is a week old, and my brother James has done with it.'

'Dear me! How dreadful!' said Dolores, who had been used to see all manner of papers come in as regularly as hot rolls. 'Why, you never can know anything! We didn't take in society papers, because father does not care for gossip or grandees. He has other pursuits. I can show you some of dear mother's articles. There's one called 'Unconscious Volition,'

and another on the 'Progress of Species.' I'll bring them down next time I come.'

'Have you read them?'

'No; they are too difficult. Mother was so very clever, you know.'

'She must have been,' said Constance, with a sigh; 'but how did she get them published?'

'Sent them to the editor, of course,' said Dolores. 'They all knew her, and were glad to get anything that she wrote.'

'Ah! that is what it is to have an introduction,' sighed Constance.

'What! have you written anything?' cried Dolores.

'Only a few little trifles,' said Constance, modestly. 'It is a great secret, you know, a dead secret.'

'Oh! I'll keep it. I told you my secret, you know, so you might tell me yours.'

And so to Dolores were confided sundry verses and tales on which Constance had been wont to spend a good deal of her time in that pretty sitting-room. She had actually sent her ma.n.u.scripts to magazines, but she had heard no more of one, and the other had been returned declined with thanks--all for want of an introduction. Dolores was delighted to promise that as soon as she heard from Uncle Alfred, she would get him to patronize them, and the reading occupied several Sunday afternoons.

Dolores suggested, however, that a goody-goody story about a choir-boy lost in the snow would never do for the Many Tongues, and a far more exciting one was taken up, called 'The Waif of the Moorland,' being the story of a maiden, whom a wicked step-mother was suspected of murdering, but who walked from time to time like the 'Woman in White.' There was only too much time for the romance; for weeks pa.s.sed and there was no answer from Mr. Flinders. It was possible that he might have broken off his connection with the paper, only then the letter would probably have been returned; and the other alternative was less agreeable, that it was not worth his while to write to his niece. While as to Maude Sefton, nothing was heard of her. Were her letters intercepted? And so the winter side of autumn set in. Hal was gone to Oxford, and there had been time for letters to come from Mr. Mohun, posted from Auckland, New Zealand, where he had made a halt with his sister, Mrs. Harry May, otherwise Aunt Phyllis. Dolores was very much pleased to receive her letter, and to have it all to herself; but, after all, she was somewhat disappointed in it, for there was really nothing in it that might not have been proclaimed round the breakfast-table, like the public letters from that quarter of the family who were at Rawul Pindee. It told of deep-sea soundings and investigations into the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers for her to send to them--a very improving letter, but a good deal like a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and much interested about you; indeed, they wish I had brought you with me.'

Dolores read her letter over and over and over, for the pleasure of having something all to herself, and never communicated a word about the miscroscopic monsters her father had described, but she drew her head back and reflected, 'He little knows,' when he spoke of her being happy among her cousins.

Lady Merrifield likewise received a letter, about which she did not say much to her children, but Miss Mohun, who had had a much longer one, came over for the day to read this to her sister. In point of fact, she had paired in childhood with her brother Maurice. She had been his correspondent in school and college days, and being a person never easily rebuffed, she had kept up more intercourse with him and his wife than any others of the family had done, and he had preserved the habit of writing to her much more freely and unreservedly than to any one else. So the day after the New Zealand letters came, just as the historical reading and needlework were in full force, the schoolroom door was opened, and a brisk little figure stood there in sealskin coat and hat.

Up jumped mamma. 'Oh! Jenny! Brownie indeed! How did you come? You didn't walk from the station?'

'Yes, why not? Otherwise I should have been too soon, and have disturbed the lessons,' said Aunt Jane, in the intervals of the greeting kisses.

'All well with the Indian folks?'

'Oh yes; they've come back from the emerald valleys of Cashmere, and Alethea has actually sent me a primrose--just like an English one--that they found growing there. They did enjoy it so. Have you heard from Maurice?'

'Yes, I thought you would like to hear about Phyllis, so, having enjoyed it with Ada, I brought it over for further enjoyment with you.'

'That's a dear old Brownie! We've a good hour before dinner. Shall we read it to the general public, or shall we adjourn to the drawing-room?'

"Oh! I a.s.sure you it is very instructive. Quite as much so as Miss Sewell's 'Rome.'"

And Aunt Jane, whom Gillian had aided in disrobing herself of her outdoor garments, was installed by the fire, and unfolded a whole volume of thin, mauve sheets in Mr. Mohun's tiny Greek-looking handwriting.

It was a sort of journal of his voyage. There were all the same accounts of the minute creatures that are incipient chalk, and their exquisite cells, made, some of coral, some of silex spicule from sponges; the some descriptions of phosph.o.r.escent animals, meduse, and the like, that Dolores had thought her own special treasure and privilege, only a great deal fuller, and with the scientific terms untranslated--indeed, Aunt Jane had now and then to stop and explain, since she had always kept up with the course of modern discovery. There was also much more about his shipmates, with one or two of whom Mr. Mohun had evidently made great friends. He told his sister a great deal about them, and his conversations with them, whereas he had only told Dolores abut one little midshipman getting into a sc.r.a.pe. Perhaps nothing else was to be expected, but it made her feel the contrast between being treated with real confidence and as a mere child, and it seemed to put her father further away from her than ever.

Then came the conclusion, written on sh.o.r.e--

'Harry May came on board to take me home with him. He is a fine, genial fellow and his welcome did one's heart good. I never did him justice before; but I see his good sense and superiority called into play out here. Depend upon it, there's nothing like going to the other end of the world to teach the value of home ties.'

'Well done, Maurice,' exclaimed Lady Merrifield; but she glanced at Dolores and checked herself.