'She! she thinks everything a fright!' said Valetta.

'Except Constance,' added Wilfred.

'Who is ugliest of all!' politely chimed in Fergus.

'Oh, j.a.ps, she is such a nasty girl--Dolly, I mean!' cried Valetta.

"You know you ought not to say 'nasty,'" exclaimed Mysie.

'Well, but she is!' insisted Val. 'She squashed a dear little ladybird, and said it would sting!'

'She really thought it would,' said Mysie.

At which the young barbarians shouted aloud with contempt, and Valetta added. 'She is afraid of everything--cows and dogs and frogs.'

'I got a whole match-box full of gra.s.shoppers to shut up in her desk and make her squall,' said Wilfred, 'only the girls went and turned them out.'

'It was so cruel to the poor gra.s.shoppers,' said Mysie. 'One had his horn broken, and dragged his leg.'

'What does she do?' asked Jasper.

'She's always cross,' said Fergus.

'And she won't play,' added Valetta. 'And never will lend us anything of hers.'

'And she's a regular sneak,' said Wilfred. 'She wants to tell of everything--only we stopped that and she doesn't dare now.'

'You see,' said Mysie, gravely, 'she has always lived alone and in London, and that makes her horribly stupid about everything sensible. We thought we should soon teach her to be nice; and mamma says we shall if we are patient.'

'We'll teach her, won't we, j.a.ps!' said Wilfred, aside, in an ominous voice.

'She is only thirteen,' added Valetta, 'and she pretends to be grown up, and only to care for a grown-up young lady--that Constance Hacket.'

'Yes,' added Mysie, 'only think--they write poetry!'

'What rot it must be!' said Jasper. 'There's a man in my house that writes poetry, and don't they chaff him! And this must be ever so much worse.'

'Oh, that it is,' said Valetta. 'I heard Mr. Poulter and Miss Vincent laughing about it like anything.'

'But they get it put into print,' said Mysie, still impressed. 'Miss Hacket brought it up to give to mamma, and there's ever so much of it shut up in the drawing-room blotting-book with the malachite k.n.o.bs. I can't think why they laugh--I think it is very pretty. Old Miss Hacket read me the one about "My Lost Dove."'

'Mysie always will stick up for Dolores,' said Valetta in a grumbling voice.

'I always meant her to be my friend,' said Mysie, disconsolately.

'Well, I'm glad she's not,' said Jasper. 'What a sell it would have been for me to find you chummy with a stupid, poetry-writing, good-for-nothing girl like that, instead of my jolly old Mice!'

And at that minute all Dolly's slights were fully compensated for!

There was a lurking purpose in the boys' minds that if Dolores would not join in fun, yet still fun should be extracted from her. Jasper had brought home a box of j.a.panese fireworks, and Wilfred, who was superintending his unpacking, proposed to light the serpent and place it in Dolores's path as she was going up to bed; but Jasper was old enough to reply that he would have no concern with anything so low and sn.o.bbish as such a trick. In fact, there was in Jasper's mind a decided line between bullying and teasing, which did not exist as yet in Wilfred's conscience. And, altogether, Dolores was in a state of mind that made her stiff letters to her father betray low spirits and discontent.

On Sunday, while waiting for the early dinner, Jasper and Mysie happened to be together in the drawing-room, and Mysie took the opportunity of showing her brother the different cuttings of poetry. The lines were smooth, and some had a certain swing in them such as Mysie, with an unformed taste, a love for Miss Hacket, and amazement that the words of a familiar acquaintance of her own should appear in print, genuinely admired. But the eyes of a youth exercised in 'chaffing' the productions of one of his fellow 'men' were infinitely more critical. Besides, what could be more shocking to the General's son than the confusion between the evening gun and the sham fight? And Mysie had been reduced to confusion for not detecting the faults, and then pardoned in consideration of being only a girl, by the time the gong summoned them to the Sunday roast beef.

The dinner over, the female part of the family, scampered headlong upstairs, while Harry repaired with his mother to her room to talk over a letter from his father respecting his plans on leaving Oxford. The other boys hung about the hall, until Gillian and Dolores came down equipped for walking. 'Hollo, Gill! All right! Where's Mysie? We'll be off! Mysie! Mice! Mouse! Val!'

'You must wait for them, j.a.ps,' said Gillian. 'They are having their dresses changed; and, don't you remember, I always go to Miss Hacket's.'

'Botheration! What for?'

'You know very well.'

'Oh yes. To help her to write touching verses about the sweet dead dove, with voice and plumage soft as love, eh? Only, Gill, I'm afraid your memory is failing, if you don't know the evening gun from rifle practice.'

'Nonsense! that's no concern of mine,' said Gillian, opening the front door, very anxious to get Dolores away from hearing anything worse.

'Oh, that's your modesty. Only such a conjunction could have produced such a scene that the evening star came up backwards to look at it!'

'For shame, Jasper! How in the world did you get hold of that?'

'Too sweet a thing not to meet with universal fame,' said Jasper, to whom it was exquisite fun to a.s.sume that Gillian devoted her Sunday afternoons to the concoction of such poetry with Constance Hacket, and thus to revenge himself for his disgust and jealousy at having his favourite companion and slave engrossed. Wilfred hopped about like an imp in ecstasy, grinning in the face of Dolores, whom Gillian longed to free from her tormentors. The shout was welcome, as Mysie and Valetta came tearing down the drive after them.

'j.a.ps! j.a.ps! Oh, we couldn't come before because nurse would make us take off our Sunday serges. Come and let out the dogs. Mamma says we may see if there are any nice fir cones in the plantation to gild for the Christmas-tree.'

'And you won't come?' said Jasper. 'The Muses must meet. What a poem you will produce!

'Hear I a cannon or a rifle, That is an unessential trifle!'

'What nonsense boys do talk!' said Gillian, turning her back on them with regret; for much as she loved her cla.s.s, she better loved a walk with Jasper, and here was Dolores on her hands in a state of exasperation, believing her to have broken her promise, and muttering,

'You set him on.'

'No, indeed I never did! You know I promised.'

'There are plenty of ways of getting out of a promise.'

'Speak for yourself, Dolores.'

There were ten minutes of offended silence, and then Gillian said, 'This is nonsense! You may believe me, I was sorry I laughed at the first verses you showed me, and mamma said I ought not. We never spoke of it, but Miss Hacket has been giving mamma all the poems, and Jasper must have got at them. Don't you see?'

'Oh yes, you say so,' said Dolores, sulkily.

'You don't believe me!'

'You promised that your brothers should never hear of it.'

'I promised for myself. I couldn't promise for what was put into a newspaper and trumpeted all over the place,' said Gillian, really angry now.