Part 17 (2/2)

'And now,' said Dolores, 'what shall I do? If poor Uncle Alfred writes to me, Aunt Lilias will have the letter and read it, and the Mohuns are all so stuck up; they will despise him, and very likely she will never let me have the letter.'

'Yes, but, dear, couldn't you write here, with my things, and tell him how it is, and tell him to write under cover to me?'

'Dear Connie! How good you are! Yes, that would be quite delightful!'

All the confidences and all the caresses had, however, taken quite as long as the G.F.S. cla.s.s, and before Constance had cleared a s.p.a.ce on the table for Dolores's letter, there was a summons to say that Gillian was ready to go home.

'So early!' said Constance. 'I thought you would have had tea and stayed to evening service.'

'I should like it so much,' cried Dolores, remembering that it would spare her the black oxen in the cross-path, as well as giving her the time with her friend.

So they went down with the invitation, but Gillian replied that mamma always liked to have all together for the Catechism, and that she could not venture to leave Dolores without special permission.

'Quite right, my dear,' said Miss Hacket. 'Connie would be very sorry to do anything against Lady Merrifield's rules. We shall see you again in a day or two.'

And this is the way in which Constance kept her friend's secret. When Miss Hacket had done her further work with a G.F.S. young woman who needed private instruction to prepare her for baptism, the two sisters sat down to a leisurely tea before starting for evensong; in the first place, Constance detailed all she had discovered as to the connection with Lord Rotherwood, in which subject, it must be confessed, good Miss Hacket took a lively interest, having never so closely encountered a live marquess, 'and so affable,' she contended; upon which Constance declared that they were all stuck-up, and were very unkind and hard to poor darling Dolores.

'I don't know. I cannot fancy dear Lady Merrifield being unkind to any one, especially a dear girl as good as an orphan,' said Miss Hacket, who, if not the cleverest of women, was one of the best and most warm-hearted. 'And, indeed, Connie, I don't think dear Gillian and Mysie feel at all unkindly to their cousin.'

'Ah! that's just like you, Mary. You never see more than the outside, but then I am in dear Dolly's confidence.'

'What do you mean, Connie?' said Miss Hacket, eagerly.

Constance had come home from school with the reputation of being much more accomplished than her elder sister, who had grown up while her father was a curate of very straitened means, and thus, though her junior, she was thought wonderfully superior in discernment and everything else.

'Well,' said Constance, 'what do you think of Lady Merrifield sending her to bed for staying late here that morning?'

'That was strict, certainly; but you know she sent Mysie too. It was all my own thoughtlessness for detaining them,' said the good elder sister.

'I was so grieved!'

'Yes,' said Constance, 'it sounds all very well to say Mysie was treated in the same way, but in the afternoon Mysie was allowed to go and make messes with blackberry jam, while poor Dolly was kept shut up in the schoolroom!'

Constance did not like Lady Merrifield, who had unconsciously snubbed some of her affectations, and nipped in the bud a flirtation with Harry, besides calling off some of the curates to be helpful. But Miss Hacket admired her neighbour as much as her sister would permit, and made answer--

'It is so hard to judge, my dear, without knowing all. Perhaps Mysie had finished her lessons.'

'Ah! I know you always are for Lady Merrifield! But what do you say, then, to her prying into all that poor child's correspondence?'

'My dear, I think most people do think it advisable to have some check on young girl's letters. Perhaps Dolores's father desired it.'

'He never put on any restrictions,' said Constance. 'I am sure he never would. Men don't. It is always women, with their nasty, prying, tyrannous instincts.'

'I am sure,' returned Mary, 'one would not think a child like Dolores Mohun could have anything to conceal.'

'But she has!' cried Constance.

'No, my dear! Impossible!' exclaimed Miss Hacket, looking very much shocked. 'Why, she can't be fourteen!'

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