So Gillian was called to her mother's room to be told first of the arrangement, which certainly in some aspects was rather hard on her.

'I could not help it, my dear,' said Lady Merrifield, 'without absolutely asking for an invitation for you.'

'No, mamma; and it is Mysie who is Fly's friend, being the same age and all. It is quite right, and I understand it.'

'My dear, I am so glad I can do such a thing as this. If there were small jealousies among you, I could not venture on letting you be set aside, for I know the disappointment was quite as great to you as to Mysie, when we gave it up.'

'But she was better about it than I,' said Gillian; 'mamma, your trusting me in that way is better than a dozen b.a.l.l.s. Besides, I know I should hate being there without you; I'm a great old thing, as Jasper says, neither fish nor fowl, you know, not come out, and not a little girl in the schoolroom, and it would be very horrid going to a grand place like that on one's own account.'

'That's right, Gillyflower. 'Tis very wholesome to discover the sourness of the grapes. And as I think grandmamma is really coming, I shall want you at home, and to look after Dolores.'

'That's the worst of it, mamma; I shall never get on with her as Mysie does.'

'We must do our best, for I do think really the poor child is improving.'

'Lessons will begin again! That's one comfort,' said Gillian, rather quaintly, thinking of the length of time that Dolores would thus be off her hands.

'And now call Mysie. I must speak to her.'

As for Mysie, she was in a state of rapture. She knew her bliss before her mother had communicated it, for Lord Rotherwood could not refrain from telling his daughter that consent was gained, and Fly darted headlong to embrace Mysie, dance round her and rejoice. The boys declared that Mysie at once sprang into the air like a chamois, and that her head touched the ceiling, but this is believed to be a figment of Jasper's.

It was only on the summons to her mother's room that Mysie discovered that Gillian was not going with her. It dimmed the l.u.s.tre of her delight for a little while, 'Oh, Gill, aren't you very sorry? You ought to have had the first turn.'

'Never mind, Mysie, you are Fly's friend,'--and the two sisters' looks at one another at that moment were a real pleasure to their mother.

Mysie was of a less shy nature than Gillian, as well as at a less awkward age, so that the visiting without her mother was less formidable, and she rushed about wild with delight; but Dolores was very disconsolate.

'Every one I care for goes away and changes,' she said in her melancholy little sentiment.

'But it's only for a fortnight, Dolly, I don't think I could change so fast.'

'Oh yes, you will, among all those swells. You like Fly ever so much better than me.'

Mysie looked grieved and puzzled, but then exclaimed, in the tone of a discovery, 'There are different sorts of likings, Dolly, don't you see.

I do love Fly very much, but you know you are like a sort of almost twin sister to me. I like her best, but I care about you most!'

With which curious distinction Dolores had to put up.

CHAPTER XIX. -- A SADDER AND A WISER AUTh.o.r.eSS.

Colonel Mohun took Wilfred to his school, which began its term earlier than did Jasper's, and Silver-ton was wonderfully quiet. The elder Mrs.

Merrifield was not to come for nearly a week, so that it would have been possible for her daughter-in-law to go to the Rotherwood festivities without interfering with her visit, but this no one except Gillian and Mysie knew, and they kept the secret well.

The departure of the boys was a great relief to Dolores. Her aunt did not rank her with Valetta and Fergus, but let her consort with herself and Gillian, and this suited her much better. Even Gillian allowed that she was ever so much nicer when there was no one to tease her. It was true that Jasper certainly, and perhaps Wilfred, would not have molested her if she had not offended the latter, and offered herself as fair game; but Gillian, who had to forestall and prevent their pranks, could not feel their absence quite the privation her sisterly spirit usually did!

Valetta and Fergus were harmless without them, but they were forlorn, being so much used to having their sports led by their two seniors that they hardly knew what to do without them, and the entreaty, or rather the whine, 'I want something to do,' was heard unusually often. This led to Gillian's being often called off to attend to them during the course of wet days that ensued, and thus Dolores was a good deal alone with her aunt, who was superintending her knitting a pair of silk stockings to send out to her father, it was hoped in time for his next birthday.

At the first proposal, Dolores looked dull and unwilling, and at last she squeezed out, 'I don't think father will ever want me to do anything for him again.'

'My poor child, do you think a father does not forgive and love all the more one who is in deep sorrow for a fault?'

'I don't think my letter seemed sorry! I was not half so sorry then as I am now,' then at a kind word from her aunt her eyes overflowed, and she said, 'No, I wasn't; I didn't know how good you were, or how bad I was!'

And when Aunt Lily kissed her, she put her arms round the kind neck that bent down to her, and laid her head against it, as if it was quite a rest to feel that love. Her aunt encouraged her to write again to her father, and to try to express something of her grief and entreaty for forgiveness, and she was somewhat cheered after this; as though something of the load on her mind was removed. One day she brought down all the books in her room and said, 'Please, Aunt Lily, look at them, and let them be with the rest in the schoolroom, I want to be just like the others.'

Lady Merrifield was much pleased with this surrender. Some of the books were really well worth having and reading, indeed, the best of them she knew, but there were eight or ten which she suspected of being what Mysie called silly stories, and she kept them back to look over. She had been trying in this quiet interval to get Dolly to read something besides mere childish stories for recreation; and when she saw how well worn the story books were, and how untouched the 'easy history,' and the books about animals and foreign countries were, she saw why so clever a girl as Dolores seemed so stupid about everything she had not learnt as a lesson, and entirely ignorant of English poetry.

Lady Merrifield read to her and Gillian in the evenings, and how they did enjoy it, and bemoaned the coming of grandmamma, to spoil their snugness and occupy 'mamma.' For Dolores began so to call Lady Merrifield. She had never so termed her own mother, and it seemed to her that with the words 'Aunt Lily' she put away all sorts of foolish, sinister feelings.

'Mrs. Merrifield was a wonderful old lady, brisk of mind and body, though of great age. She had been spending Christmas with her eldest son, the Admiral, at Stokesley, and was going to take on her way the daughter-in-law, of whom she knew but little in comparison; and with her she brought the granddaughter, Elizabeth Merrifield, who--since her own daughter had died--generally lived with her in London, to take care of her.

'It will be all company and horrid, and n.o.body will be allowed to make a noise!' sighed Valetta to Fergus, as the waggonette, well shut up, drove to the door.

'There's cousin Bessie,' said Fergus.

'Oh, cousin Bessie is thirty-four, and that is as bad as being as old as grandmamma!'

And they hung back while the old lady was helped out, and brought across the hall into the warm drawing-room before her fur cloak was taken off.

There was a quiet little person with her, and Val whispered, 'She'll be just like Aunt Jane.'

But the eyes that Bessie turned on her cousins were not at an like Aunt Jane's little searching black ones. They were of a dark shade of grey, and had a wonderful softness and sweetness in them. Gillian knew her a little already, but very little, for there had always been the elder sisters at their former short meetings. Mamma lamented that there should be so few grandchildren at home to be shown, though, as she said, 'the full number might have been too noisy.'

Grandmamma shook her head. 'I like the house full,' she said, 'I'm all right, but it is a pity to see the nest emptied, like Stokesley, now.

n.o.body left at home but Susan and little Sally! Make the most of them while you have them about you!'

The old lady was quite delighted to find Primrose so nearly a baby, and to have one grandchild still quite as small or smaller than some of her great grandchildren whom she had never seen. Her great pleasure, however, soon proved to be in talking about her son Jasper, and hearing all his wife could tell her about his life in India; and as Lady Merrifield liked no other subject so well, they were very happy together, and quite absorbed.

Meanwhile Bessie made herself a companion to Gillian and Dolores, and though so much older, seemed to consider herself as a girl like them.

Then, living for the most part in town, she could talk about London matters to Dolly, and this was a great treat, while yet she had country tastes enough to suit Gillian, and was not in the least afraid of a long walk to the fir plantations to pick up Weymouth pine cones, and the still more precious pinaster ones.

For the first time Gillian began to see Dolores as Uncle Reginald used to know her, free from that heavy mist of sullen dislike to everything and everybody. It seemed to bring them together, but, in spite of Bessie's charms, they both continually missed Mysie, out of doors and in, in schoolroom and drawing-room, and, above all, in Dolly's bedroom.

She seemed to be, as Gillian told Bessie, 'a sort of family cement, holding the two ends, big and little, together;' and Bessie responded that her elder sister Susan was one of that sort.

The evenings now were quite unlike the usual ones. Dinner was late, and the two girls came down to it. Afterwards the young ones sat round the fire in the hall, where Bessie, who was a wonderful story-teller, kept Fergus and Valetta quiet and delighted, either with invented tales or histories of the feats of her own brothers and sisters, who were so much older than their Silverton first cousins as to be like an elder generation.

When the two young ones were gone to bed, the others came into the drawing-room, where mamma and grandmamma were to be found, either going over papa's letters, or else Mrs. Merrifield talking about her Stokesley grandchildren, the same whose pranks Bessie had just been telling, so that it was not easy to believe in Sam, a captain in the navy. Harry and John farming in Canada, David working as a clergy-man in the Black Country, George in a government office, Anne a clergyman's wife, and mother to the great grandchildren who were always being compared to Primrose, Susan keeping her father's house, and Sarah, though as old as Alethea, still treated as the youngest--the child of the family.

The bits of conversation came to the girls as they sat over their work, and Bessie would join in, and tell interesting things, till she saw that grandmamma was ready for her nap, and then one or other gave a little music, during which Dolly's bed-time generally came.

'You can't think how grateful I am to you for helping to brighten up that poor child in a wholesome way!' said Lady Merrifield to Bessie, under cover of Gillian's performance.

'One can't help being very sorry for her,' said Elizabeth, who knew what was hanging over Dolly.