Part 17 (1/2)

'Well, don't come if you don't like it,' said Gillian, impatiently. 'It is your own concern. I must go.'

Dolores did not like the notion of Constance being told that she would not come because she was afraid of the oxen. She thought it very unkind of Gillian, but she came, and kept carefully on the side furthest from the formidable animals. And Gillian really was forbearing. She did make allowances for the London-bred girl's fears; and the only thing she did was, that when one of the animals lifted up its head and looked, and Dolores made a spring as if to run away, she caught the girl's arm, crying, 'Don't! That's the very way to make him run after you.'

They got safe out of the paddock at last, and rang at the door. They were both kissed, Dolores with especial affectionateness, because the good ladies pitied her so much; and then while Miss Hacket and Gillian went off to their cla.s.s, Constance took Dolores up into her own room, and began to tell her how disappointed she was not to have seen more of her at the Festival.

'But those curates would not let me alone. I was obliged to attend to them.'

And then she was very eager to know all about Lord Rotherwood, which rather amazed Dolores, who had been in the habit of hearing her father mention him as 'that mad fellow Rotherwood,' while her mother always spoke with contempt of people who ran after lords and ladies, and had been heard to say that Lord Rotherwood himself was well enough, but his wife was a mere fine lady.

But Dolores had a matter on which she was very anxious.

'Connie, do they always read one's letters first? I mean the old people, like Aunt Lily.'

'What! has she been reading your letters?'

'She says she always shall, except father's and Maude Sefton's, because papa spoke to her about that. She took a letter of mine the other day, and never let me have it till the evening, and I am sure Aunt Jane put her up to it.'

'You poor darling!' exclaimed Constance. 'Was it anything you cared about?'

'Oh no--not that--but there might be. And I want to know whether she has the right.'

'I should not have thought Lady Merrifield would have been so like an old schoolmistress. Miss Dormer always did, the old cat! where I went to school,' said Constance. 'We did hate it so! She looked over every one's letters, except parents', so that we never could have anything nice, except by a chance or so.'

'It is tyranny,' said Dolores, solemnly. 'I do not see why one should submit to it.'

'We had dodges,' continued Constance, warming with the history of her school-days, and far too eager to talk to think of the harm she might be doing to the younger girl. 'Sometimes, when a lot of us went to a shop with one of the governesses, one would slip out and post a letter.

Fraulein was so short-sighted, she never guessed. We used to call her the jolly old Kafer. But Mademoiselle was very sharp. She once caught Alice Bell, so that she had to make an excuse and say she had dropped something. You see, she really had--the letter into the slit.'

'But that was an equivocation.'

'Oh, you darling scrupulous, long-worded child! You aren't like the girls at Miss Dormer's, only she drove us to it, you know. You'll be horribly shocked, but I'll tell you what Louie Preston did. There was a young man in the town whom she had met at a picnic in the holidays--a clerk, he was, at the bank--and he used to put notes to her under the cus.h.i.+ons at church; but one unlucky Sunday, Louie had a cold and didn't go, and she told Mabel Blisset to bring it, and Mabel didn't understand the right place, and went poking about, so that Miss Dormer found it out, and there was such a row!'

'Wasn't that rather vulgar?' said Dolores.

'Well, he was only a clerk, but he was a duck of a man, with regular auburn hair, you know. And he sang! We used to go to the Choral Society concerts, and he sang ballads so beautifully, and always looked at Louie!'

'I should not care for anything of that sort,' said Dolores. 'I think it is bad form.'

'So it is,' said Constance, seriously, 'only one can't help recollecting the fun of the thing, and what one was driven to in those days. Is there any one you are anxious to correspond with?'

'Not in particular, only I can't bear to have Aunt Lilias meddling with my letters; and there's a poor uncle of mine that I know would not like her, or any of the Mohuns, to see his letters.

'Indeed! Your poor mamma's brother?' cried Constance, full of curiosity.

'Mind, it is in confidence. You must never tell any one.'

'Never. Oh, you may trust me!' cried Constance.

'Her half-brother,' said Dolores; and the girl proceeded to tell Constance what she had told Maude Sefton about Mr. Flinders, and how her mother had been used to a.s.sist him out of her own earnings, and how he had met her at Exeter station, and was so disappointed to have missed her father. Constance listened most eagerly, greatly delighted to have a secret confided to her, and promising to keep it with all her might.