"Very praiseworthy," said Magdalen. "Don't you know how Hubert always tells us what a dear devoted good girl she is?"

"Well, I only hope Hubert does not expect me to live in that way,"

said Vera. "His mother looks like a half-starved hare, and Edith is giving lessons as a daily governess!

"Edith is very nice," said Paula; "and I never understood before how excellent old Mr. Delrio's pictures are! Do you remember his 'Country Lane'? What a pity it did not sell!"

"Poor man!" said Magdalen. "He married too soon, and that has kept him down."

"It is beautiful to see how proud they are of Hubert," said Paula, "and his pretty gentle attention and deference to them both. Mr.

Delrio is really a gentleman, I am sure; but, Maidie," she said, falling back with her, while Vera and Thekla mounted faster, "it was very odd to see how different things looked to us from what they seemed when we were at Mrs. Best's. Filsted High Street has grown so small, and one could hardly breathe in Mrs. Delrio's stuffy drawing- room. And as to Waring Grange, which we used to think just perfect, it was all so pretentious and in such bad taste. Hubert saw it as much as we did, but I could see he was on thorns to hinder Flapsy from making observations."

Certainly the visit had not done much good, except in making the girls appreciate the refinement of their surroundings at the Goyle.

And when letters arrived from Hubert at the American Vale Leston, asking questions requiring some research in books, either Magdalen's or at the Rock Quay library, Vera dawdled and sighed over them; and when the more zealous Magdalen or Paula took all the trouble, and left nothing for her to do but to copy their notes, and write the letters, she grew cross. "It was for Hubert, and she did not want any one else to meddle! So stupid! If he had only taken Pratt and Pavis's offer, there would not have been all this bother!"

That, of course, she only ventured to utter before Paula and Thekla, and it made them both so furious that she declared she was only in joke, and did not mean it.

She was indulging in reflections on the general dulness of her lot, and the lack of sympathy in her sisters, as she lingered by the confectioner's window, with her eyes fixed on a gorgeous combination of coloured bonbons, when Wilfred Merrifield sauntered out. "Fresh from Paris!" he said. "Going to choose some?"

"Oh no, I haven't got any cash. M. A. keeps us horribly short."

"As usual with governors! But look here! Pocket this. Sweets to the sweet, from an old chum!"

"Oh, Will, how jolly! Such a love of a box."

"Make haste! Some of the girls are lurking about, and if there is any mischief to be made, trust Gill for doing it."

"Mischief!--" but before the words were out of her mouth, Gillian and Mysie appeared from the next shop, a bootmaker's, and Mysie stood aghast with, "What ARE you doing? Buying goodies! How very ridiculous!"

"The proper thing between chums, isn't it, Vera?" said Wilfred, with an indifferent air. "We aren't unlucky Sunday scholars, Mysie, to be jumped upon! Good-bye, Vera, au revoir!"

He sauntered away with his hands in his pockets; while Gillian, from her eldership of two years, and her engagement, gravely said, "Vera, perhaps you do not fully know, but I should say this is not quite the thing."

"He told you we are just chums!" exclaimed Vera. "As if there were any harm in it! You've not got a sweet tooth yourself, so you need not grudge me just a few goodies."

Gillian saw that it was of no use to prolong the dispute either for the place or the time, and she hushed Mysie, who was about to expostulate farther, and made her go away with a brief parting, such as she hoped would impress on Vera that the sisters thought very badly of her discretion and loyalty. They could not hear the reflection, "They need not be so particular and so cross. Hubert never thought of giving me anything nice like this. Why should not my chum? Such a sweet little box too, with a dear girl's head on it!

Would Polly fuss about it, and set on Sister? I shall put it into my own drawer, and then if they notice it, they may think somebody at Filsted gave it! No one has any business to worry me about Hubert, and Wilfred being civil to me. He IS a gentleman."

The gentleman had been overtaken by his sisters. He was walking his bicycle up the hill rather breathlessly and slowly. Mysie indignantly began, "Of all the stupid things to do, to give goodies to that girl, like a baby!"

"I have been wishing to speak to you," said Gillian. "You are going the way to get that foolish girl into a sc.r.a.pe."

"Oh, yes, of course. Sisters uniformly object to a little civility to a pretty girl," carelessly answered Wilfred.

"Nonsense!" returned Mysie, hotly. "We don't care! only it is not fair on Mr. Delrio."

"The painter cad! A very good thing too! The sacrifice ought to be prevented. Is not that the general sentiment?"

"Wilfred!" cried the scandalised Mysie, "when it is all the other way, and he is ever so much too good for her."

"Consummate prig! The cheek of him pretending to a lady!"

"But, Wilfred," went on downright Mysie, "is it only mischief, or do you want to marry her yourself?"

"Draw your own conclusions," responded Wilfred, mounting his machine, and spinning down the hill faster than they could follow on foot.

"What is to be done, Gill?" sighed Mysie. "Ought we to get mamma to speak to him?"

"Better not," said Gillian, with more experience. "It would only make it worse to take it seriously. Half of it is play--and half to tease you."

"And," said Mysie, with due deference to the engaged sister, "how about Mr. Delrio? Will it make him unhappy?"

"If he finds out in time what a horrid little thing it is, I should say it would be very well for him; but I don't want Will to be the means."

"Oh! when his examination is over, and he gets an appointment, he will go away, and it will be safe."

"I have not much hopes of his getting in!"

"Oh, Gill, none of us ever failed before."

On the side of the Goyle not much was known or cared about Wilfred's little attentions, which were generally out of sight of Magdalen, and did not amount to much; but Paula saw enough of them to consult Agatha on, and to observe that Flapsy was going on just as she used to at Filsted, and she thought Hubert would not like it.

"I believe Flapsy can't live without it," sighed Agatha.

"But would you speak to her? I don't think she ought to let him give her boxes of bonbons--to keep up in her room, and never give a hint to Maidie."

Agatha did speak but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, Gillian Merrifield and all!

"Did Gillian speak to you?"

"Yes, as if she had any business to do so!"

"I am sure it is not the way she would treat Captain Armitage."

"I don't believe she cares for Captain Armitage one bit! You said yourself that all the girls at Oxford thought she cared much more for her horrid examination! I wouldn't be a dry, cold-hearted, insensible stick like her for the world."

"Perhaps she is the more quietly in earnest," said Agatha, repenting a little that she had told before Vera the college jokes over what had leaked out of Gillian's reception of Ernley Armitage when he had hastened up to Oxford as soon as his ship was paid off, and she had been called down to him in the Lady Princ.i.p.al's room. Report said that she had only prayed him to keep out of the way, and not to upset her brain, and that he had meekly obeyed--as one who knew what it was to have promotion depending on it.

It was a half truth, exaggerated, but it had not a happy effect on Vera. Nevertheless, the finishing push of preparation brought on such a succession of violent headaches as quite to disable the really delicate boy. Moreover, the tutor declared that there had been little chance of his success, and Dr. Dagger said that he had much better not try again. The best hope for his health, and even for his life, was to keep him at home for a few years, and give him light work.

He had never been the pleasantest element in the household; and if his parents were glad of the avoidance of the risk of a launch into the world, and his mother's love rejoiced in the power of watching over him, there were others who felt his temper a continual trial, while his career was a perplexity.

However, Captain Henderson offered a clerkship at the Marble Works, subject to Mr. White's approval; and this was gratefully accepted.

Nor did Agatha come home again at the Long Vacation for more than two days, in which there was no time for consultation with her sisters on matters of uncertain import.

Miss Arthuret and Elizabeth Merrifield had arranged together to take the old roomy farmhouse on Penbeacon for three or four months, and there receive parties of young women in need of rest, fresh air, and, in some cases, of cla.s.ses, or time for study. It was to be a sort of Holiday House, though not altogether of idleness; and Dolores undertook to be a kind of vice-president, with Agatha to pursue her reading under her superintendence, and to a.s.sist in helping others, governesses, students, schoolmistresses from Coalham, in whose behalf indeed the scheme had been first started, and it was extremely delightful to Agatha, among many others.