"Well, what? Don"t be afraid."

"Then I did think she was fidgety and worrying--always at one, and wanting to poke her nose into everything."

"Poor Aunt Jane! Those are the faults of her girlhood, which she has been struggling against all her life!"

"But in your time, mamma, would such difficulties really not have been seen--I mean, if she had been actually what I thought her?"

"I think the difference was that no faults of the elders were dwelt upon by a loyal temper. To find fault was thought so wrong that the defects were scarcely seen, and were concealed from ourselves as well as others. It would scarcely, I suppose, be possible to go back to that unquestioning state, now the temper of the times is changed; but I belong enough to the older days to believe that the true safety is in submission in the spirit as well as the letter."

"I am sure I should have found it so," said Gillian. "And oh! I hope, now that papa is come, the Whites may be spared any more of the troubles I have brought on them."

"We will pray that it may be so." said her mother.

CHAPTER XIX. -- THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON

A telegram had been received in the morning, which kept Valetta and Fergus on the qui vive all day. Valetta was an unspeakable worry to the patient Miss Vincent, and Fergus arranged his fossils and minerals.

Both children flew out to meet their father at the gate, but words failed them as he came into the house, greeted the aunts, and sat down with Fergus on his knee, and Valetta encircled by his arm.

"Yes, Lilias is quite well, very busy and happy--with her first instalment of children."

"I am so thankful that you are come," said Adeline. "Jane ventured to augur that you would, but I thought it too much to hope for."

"There was no alternative," said Sir Jasper.

"I infer that you halted at Avoncester."

"I did so; I saw the poor boy."

"What a comfort for his sister!"

"Poor fellow! Mine was the first friendly face he had seen, and he was almost overcome by it"--and the strong face quivered with emotion at the recollection of the boy"s grat.i.tude.

"He is a nice fellow," said Jane. "I am glad you have seen him, for neither Mr. White nor Rotherwood can believe that he is not utterly foolish, if not worse."

"A boy may do foolish things without being a fool," said Sir Jasper.

"Not that this one is such another as his father. I wish he were."

"I suppose he has more of the student scholarly nature."

"Yes. The enlistment, which was the making of his father, was a sort of moral suicide in him. I got him to tell me all about it, and I find that the idea of the inquest, and of having to mention you, you monkey, drove him frantic, and the dismissal completed the business."

"I told them about it," said Fergus.

"Quite right, my boy; the pity was that he did not trust to your honour, but he seems to have worked himself into the state of mind when young men run amuck. I saw his colonel, Lydiard, and the captain and sergeant of his company, who had from the first seen that he was a man of a higher cla.s.s under a cloud, and had expected further inquiry, though, even from the little that had been seen of him, there was a readiness to take his word. As the sergeant said, he was not the common sort of runaway clerk, and it was a thousand pities that he must go to the civil power--in which I am disposed to agree. What sort of man is the cousin at the marble works?"

"A regular beast," murmured Fergus.

"I think," said Jane, "that he means to be good and upright."

"More than means," said Ada, "but he is cautious, and says he has been so often deceived."

"As far as I can understand," said Jane, "there was originally desperate enmity between him and his cousin."

"He forgave entirely," said Ada; "and he really has done a great deal for the family, who own that they have no claim upon him."

"Yes," said Jane, "but from a distance, with no personal knowledge, and a contempt for the foreign mother, and the pretensions to gentility. He would have been far kinder if his cousin had remained a sergeant."

"He only wished to try them," said Adeline, "and he always meant to come and see about them; besides, that eldest son has been begging of him on false pretences all along."

"That I can believe," said Sir Jasper. "I remember his father"s distress at his untruth in the regimental school, and his foolish mother shielding him. No doubt he might do enough to cause distrust of his family; but has Mr. White actually never gone near them, as Gillian told me?"

"Excepting once walking Maura home," said Jane, "no; but I ascribe all that to the partner, Mr. Stebbing, who has had it all his own way here, and seems to me to have systematically kept Alexis down to unnecessarily distasteful drudgery. Kalliope"s talent gave her a place; but young Stebbing"s pursuit of her, though entirely unrequited, has roused his mother"s bitter enmity, and there are all manner of stories afloat. I believe I could disprove every one of them; but together they have set Mr. White against her, and he cannot see her in her office, as her mother is too ill to be left. I do believe that if the case against Alexis is discharged, they will think she has the money."

"Stebbing said Maura changed a five-pound note," put in Fergus; "and when I told him to shut up, for it was all bosh, he punched me."

I hope Richard sent it" said Ada, "but you see the sort of report that is continually before Mr. White--not that I think he believes half, or is satisfied--with the Stebbings."

"I am sure he is not with Frank Stebbing," said Jane. "I do think and hope that he is only holding off in order to judge; and I think your coming may have a great effect upon him, Jasper."

The Rotherwoods had requested Sir Jasper to use their apartments at the hotel, and he went thither to dress, being received, as he said, by little Lady Phyllis with much grace and simplicity.

The evening pa.s.sed brightly, and when the children were gone to bed, their father said rather anxiously that he feared the aunts had had a troublesome charge hastily thrust on them.

"We enjoyed it very much," said Adeline politely.

"We were thankful to have a chance of knowing the young people," added Jane. "I am only glad you did not come home at Christmas, when I was not happy about the two girls."

"Yes, Valetta got into trouble and wrote a piteous little letter of confession about copying."

"Yes, but you need not be uneasy about that; it was one of those lapses that teach women without any serious loss. She did not know what she was about, and she told no falsehoods; indeed, each one of your children has been perfectly truthful throughout."

"That is the great point, after all. Lilias could hardly fail to make her children true."

"Fergus is really an excellent little boy, and Gillian--poor Gillian--I think she really did want more experience, and was only too innocent."

"That is what you really think," said the father anxiously.

"Yes, I do," said Jane. "If she had been a fast girl, she would have been on her guard against the awkward situation, and have kept out of this mess; but very likely would have run into a worse one."

"I do not think that her elder sisters would have done like her."

"Perhaps not; but they were living in your regimental world at the age when her schoolroom life was going on. I think you have every reason to be satisfied with her tone of mind. As you said of the boy, a person may commit an imprudence without being imprudent."