This conversation took place, as I said, on the Sunday afternoon. Very early the next morning the brougham took Jacinth back to Market Square Place, in time for her to start for school with Frances at their usual hour.

Frances did not receive with rapturous delight the news of her invitation to Robin Redbreast.

'Must I go?' she said. 'Wouldn't it do for just Eugene to go with you, Jacinth? He would enjoy it.'

'Yes, I should,' said Eugene, 'pertickerly if we have some of those little brown cakes for tea.'

'Eugene,' said Frances in a tone of disgust, 'I'm sure Lady Myrtle would not have asked you if she had known you were such a greedy little boy.'

They were in the dining-room waiting for their aunt, who, for once, was a few minutes late for dinner. Just then she came in. She greeted Jacinth pleasantly, and seemed glad to hear that she had enjoyed herself. Then she was told of the invitation for the following week, and Frances appealed to her to say she 'needn't go.' But Frances's hopes were speedily disappointed.

'Not go!' said Miss Mildmay; 'of course you must go. It would be most ungrateful to Lady Myrtle, and would, besides, put Jacinth in a very disagreeable position. You are the grand-daughter of Lady Myrtle's old friend as well as Jacinth, even though her special interest may be in Jacinth.'

'It would make me look so selfish too,' said Jacinth, who, now that she felt sure of her own place with the old lady, was far from wishing to deprive Frances of her share in the pleasures and advantages of their acquaintance with Robin Redbreast.

So Frances had to give in.

And when the day came she enjoyed the visit, on the whole, very much.

'If only,' she said to herself before starting, 'if only I could have got mamma's letter in answer to mine before going. I would have known then exactly how to do about the Harpers. Of course I can't tell stories, and _they_ would never have wanted me to do that. I only hope nothing will be said about school or about anything to do with them.'

Then she tried to recall the exact words of Camilla Harper's letter, by this time two-thirds on its way to India to her mother.

Jacinth said nothing at all about the Harpers in connection with Lady Myrtle, and Frances began to think her sister had forgotten all about the question of their possible relationship, which in the meantime at least the younger girl was not sorry for.

It was again a lovely day--the weather seemed to favour the visits to Robin Redbreast--even milder than the Sat.u.r.day of Jacinth's first stay there. And this time, instead of the brougham, a large roomy pony carriage came to fetch them, a spring cart having already called for Jacinth's portmanteau that morning.

'How lovely!' said Frances, as she and Eugene took their seats with great satisfaction opposite her sister and the coachman; 'I am so glad it is an open carriage. I wish Lady Myrtle would send us home in it again this evening: don't you, Eugene?'

'I'm sure her ladyship will be quite pleased to do so, miss, if you just mention that you would like it,' said the man, a staid unexceptionable old servant, though many years younger than Thornley.

'Oh well, I will. I may, mayn't I, Ja.s.s?' said Frances, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, only damped by Jacinth's grave expression. Did Ja.s.s think she was chattering too much already? High spirits were Francie's native air: it was very difficult for her to be quiet and subdued for long together. But Jacinth really loved to see Frances happy, and she knew that Lady Myrtle would feel the same.

'She thinks her such a mere child,' thought the elder girl. So she smiled rea.s.suringly as she replied: 'Of course, dear, you can ask Lady Myrtle. I am sure she won't mind if it keeps fine; and there is no sign of rain, is there?' she said turning to the coachman.

'No indeed, ma'am,' he replied. 'We shall have no rain just yet a bit.'

'It's a _perfect_ day,' said Frances. 'I really sometimes think I like autumn as well as spring.'

'I have always liked it much better,' said Jacinth calmly.

Lady Myrtle was walking up and down the terrace, waiting for them. She was much better--for her, indeed, quite well--she said, and her face lighted up with pleasure as she kissed Jacinth tenderly. Then she turned to the younger ones and kissed them too.

'I must have a good look at you, Frances,' she said. 'No--you are not a Moreland, and yet--yes, there is a slight _something_--in spite of your blue eyes and s.h.a.ggy hair,' and she patted Frances's head. 'And you, my boy;' and she examined Eugene in his turn. 'His eyes are more like his grandmother's; nothing approaching your eyes, Jacinth, but still they are more of the colour.'

'Eugene is very like mamma,' said Frances eagerly. 'Everybody says so.'

'And I'm called after her,' added Eugene.

'So that's quite as it should be,' said Lady Myrtle. 'And some day I hope I may have the great pleasure of comparing mamma and her boy together. Now dears, listen to my plan--would you like to go a drive this afternoon, or would you rather play about the garden and the little farm? I mean Frances and Eugene--Jacinth, of course, is quite at home here.'

The two younger ones looked at each other.

'Oh please,' said Frances, 'if we may go home in the open carriage, I think that would be enough driving. And--it's so long since we've had a nice big place to run about in, and--pigs and cows, you know, like at home? Wouldn't you like that best, Eugene?'

'May we see the cows milked?' said Eugene, prudently making his conditions, 'and, oh please, if we find any eggs, _might_ we take one home for breakfast to-morrow?'

Lady Myrtle looked much amused.

'I will put you under Barnes's charge,' she said. 'Barnes is the under-gardener, and whatever he lets you do will be quite right. You and I, Jacinth, will have a long drive to-morrow, as I always go to Elvedon church once a month, and to-morrow is the day. So I daresay you will manage to entertain yourself at home to-day. We can go through the houses in the afternoon.'

'Yes, thank you,' said Jacinth. 'And the house--you said you would show me all over the house, dear Lady Myrtle.'

'Of course; that will amuse Frances and Eugene too, I daresay, when they have had enough running about. Now your sister will go with you to your room to take her things off;' and as the two set off, she added playfully, 'Jacinth has a room of her very own here, you know, Frances.'

The younger girl was breathless with interest and pleasure, and the first sight of the interior of the quaint old house--above all, of the lovely conservatory, past which Jacinth took care to convoy her--impressed her as much as her sister.

'Oh Ja.s.s,' she said, when they found themselves in the pleasant, rather 'old-world-looking' bedroom, where a tiny wood-fire sparkling in the grate gave a cheery feeling of welcome as they entered--'Oh Ja.s.s, isn't it like a _dream_? That we should really be here in this dear old house, treated almost as if we were Lady Myrtle's own grandchildren, and you staying here, and this called your room, and--and'----

She stopped, at a loss for words to express her feelings.

Jacinth smiled, well pleased.

'Yes,' she said, 'it really is like a fairy-tale. And'----She hesitated a little. 'You don't know, Francie, what more may not come. Do you remember our saying that morning to Marmy, how lovely it would be if some day we had a house like this for our home, and how he and we would pay visits to each other?'

Frances's face grew rather pink.

'Do you mean if,' she said, her voice growing lower and lower--'if Lady Myrtle _left_ it to us, to you? I don't like, Ja.s.s, to'----

'Oh, how matter-of-fact you are!' said Jacinth impatiently; 'I don't mean anything but what I say. Lady Myrtle says she is going to invite us all--papa and mamma and us three--to stay with her when they come home, and it's a very big house, and she has no relations she cares for. It might get to be almost like our home. And Lady Myrtle is the sort of person that often speaks of getting old and--and dying. I daresay she makes plans for what she'd like to be done with her things--I know I should--though I hope she'll live twenty years, and I daresay she will, dear old thing.'

Frances would have accepted this simply enough, and after all, Jacinth felt as she said. The thought that 'some day' Robin Redbreast might be her home would be quite enough for her, and she already loved her kind old friend sincerely. But one sentence in her sister's speech startled Frances with a quick sharp stab: 'No relations that she cares for.'

Somehow, in the pleasure and excitement of coming to Robin Redbreast, she had forgotten about the Harpers. Now all her old feelings of chivalry for them, and wishes that she could be the means of helping them, rushed back upon her, and she felt as if she had, in some queer way, been faithless, even though she was debarred from doing anything, debarred even from telling Jacinth all she knew. And Frances was unaccustomed to hide her feelings; her face at once grew grave and almost distressed looking.

'What is the matter, Frances?' said Jacinth. 'You are such a kill-joy.

What are you looking so reproachful about?'

'I didn't mean--I'm not looking reproachful,' said Frances; 'it was only--oh, just something of my own I was thinking of.'

'Well then, I wish you would think of something cheerful, and not screw your face up as if you were going to cry. I don't want Lady Myrtle to think we've been quarrelling up here.'

Frances swallowed down a lump in her throat, which was far too apt to come there on small provocation.

'Of course Lady Myrtle would never think such a thing, or if she did, she would only think I was naughty or silly or something. She'd never dream of _you_ being anything but perfect, Ja.s.s. I do like her for that,' said Frances.

'You should like her for everything. I'm sure she's as kind as she can possibly be,' said Jacinth.

'Yes,' said Frances, 'she is.'