"Mamma will think we have gone quite far enough, thank you, uncle," said the sage Gillian, "and I think Fergus had better come too."

"That he had," said Jasper. "Fancy him over Peat Hill."

"He"ll be left behind to be picked up as we come back," said Wilfred.

"No, no, no! I can keep up better than you can, Wil! Take me, Uncle Regie." The little boy was so near a howl that good-natured Colonel Mohun"s heart was touched, and he consented to let him come on, though Jasper argued, "You"ll have to carry him, uncle."

"No, I"ll make you, master! Tell your mother not to wait luncheon for us, Gillian; we"ll pick up something somewhere."

"Hurrah!" cried Wilfred and Fergus, to whom this was an immense additional pleasure.

The girls turned away into the lane, Valetta indulging in an outrageous grumble. "Why should Dolores have come out to spoil everything?"

Dolores did not speak.

"Just our one chance," sighed Mysie, "and perhaps we should have seen the fox."

"We may do that yet," said Gillian; "he may come this way."

"I don"t care if he does," said Valetta. "I wanted to see them draw the copse. I believe Dolores did it on purpose to spoil our pleasure."

"Don"t be so cross, Val," said Mysie. "She can"t help being tired."

"Why did she come, then, when n.o.body wanted her?"

"For shame, Val," said Gillian, "you know mamma would be very angry to hear you say anything so unkind."

"It"s quite true, though," muttered Valetta.

"Never mind, Dolly, dear," said Mysie, shocked. "Val doesn"t really mean it, you know."

"Yes, she does," said Dolores, shaking her comforter off; "you all do! I wish I had never come here."

Mysie tried in her own persevering way to argue again that Val was only put out, and disappointed at having to turn back, to which Valetta, in spite of Gillian"s endeavour to silence her, added, "So stupid of her to come out! What did she do it for?"

Dolores, who hardly ever cried, was tired into crying now. "You grudge me everything; you wouldn"t let me speak one single word to Uncle Regie, and kept bothering about! I"ll never do anything with you again! I won"t."

"Did you want to speak to Uncle Regie?" asked Mysie.

"To be sure I did! He is my uncle, that I knew ever so long before you did, and you never let him speak to me."

"Mrs. Halfpenny always put us on the high chair, with our faces to the wall when we were jealous," remarked Valetta.

"But did you want to say anything to him in particular?" said Mysie, revolving means of contriving a private interview.

"That"s no business of yours! I wish you would let me alone!" broke out Dolores, in a fretful fright lest any one should guess that she had anything on her mind.

"To make up stories of us, of course," growled Valetta, but Gillian here interposed, declaring with authority that if she heard another word before they reached the paddock gate, she should certainly tell mother how disgracefully they had been behaving. When Gillian said such things she kept her word. Besides, by way of precaution, she marched down the muddy middle of the road, with Dolores limping along the footpath on one side, and Val as far off as possible on the border of the ditch, on the other; the more inoffensive Mysie keeping by her side. They were all weary, and Dolores was very footsore also, by the time they reached home, at the very moment that the two Misses Hacket appeared coming up the drive. Lady Merrifield, having the day before invited the elder, as the purchases needed to be looked over, and preparations set in hand, and she did not then know that her brother was coming.

Dolores scarcely knew whether she was glad to see Constance. She had many doubts and qualms about that cheque. And if she had spent any quiet time alone with her uncle, she might have laid enough of her trouble before him to get some advice or help; but to ask for an interview, especially when "everybody" thought it was to make complaints, was too uncomfortable and alarming; and she was inclined to escape from thought of the whole subject altogether by taking action quickly.

Gillian gave her uncle"s message about not waiting; the dirty boots were taken off in the hall, and Constance followed her friend up to her room to take off her things.

Dolores sat on the side of her bed, too much tired at first to be willing to move, Constance"s pity elicited tears, and that they had all been so very unkind to her; they were angry at her getting tired, and they were jealous of her even speaking to Uncle Regie. Again this alarmed Constance, "You weren"t going to tell him about Mr.

Flinders--you know you promised."

"He knows about him already, and he would tell me what to do."

"Oh! but that would never do, darling Dolly. You told me all the family were hard and unjust, and he would tell Lady Merrifield, and we should never be allowed to see each other again. And only think of my poor little secret! I didn"t think you would have turned from your poor relation in misfortune for the sake of this grand Colonel."

The end of it was, that just as the gong was sounding, Dolores handed over to Constance an envelope directed to Mr. Flinders, and containing Mr. Maurice Mohun"s cheque. It was off her mind now, she thought, as she shuffled down to dinner, lookup so pale and uneasy that her aunt made her have a gla.s.s of wine and some gravy soup to begin with, and, when dinner was over, turned all the parcels off the school-room sofa, and made her lie upon it during the grand unpacking, which was almost as charming as the purchasing, perhaps more so, since there was no comparison with costlier articles.

There was not very much time. This was Friday and Christmas Day was on Monday, so there were only two more clear week-days before the birthday and Miss Hacket would be church-decorating on the morrow; but Lady Merrifield would not send her daughters to help, as there were plenty of hands without them, and they were too young to trust in a mixed set, who were not always sure to be reverent.

Dinner had rested and refreshed them; they rejoiced in the absence of the man-kind, and Primrose was sent out for her walk while the numerous boxes and packages were opened, and displayed sconces and tapers, gilt b.a.l.l.s and gla.s.s birds, oranges and bon-bons, disguised in every imaginable fashion. There was a double set of the tapers, and two relays of devices in sweets, for the benefit of the party of the second night, a list of whom Miss Hacket had brought, that heads might be counted, and any deficiency supplied in time through Aunt Jane. For Lady Merrifield had commissioned Gillian to lay in--unknown to the good lady--a stock of such treasures as are valuable indeed to the little maid: sh.e.l.l pin-cushions, Cinderella slippers holding thimbles, cases of hair-pins, queer housewives, and the like things, wonderfully pretty for the price, and which filled the kind heart of Miss Hacket with rapture and grat.i.tude at such brilliant additions to her own home-made contrivances in the way of cuffs, comforters, and illuminated workbags, all beautifully neat; I though it was hard to persuade her of what Lady Merrifield averred, that such things ought to be far more precious than brilliant, shop-bought, ready-made ware, "with no love-seed in it."

"It is very hard," she said; "how fancy shops try to spoil all one used to be able to do for one"s friends. The purses, and the penwipers, and the needle-cases that were one"s choicest presents in my youth, are all turned out now smart and tight and fashioned, but without a sc.r.a.p of the honest old labour and love that went into them."

"But papa and mamma do care still," cried Gillian; "papa never will have any purse but the long ones mamma nets for him."

"And mamma always will have the old brown and blue carriage-bag that Aunt Phyllis worked," chimed in Mysie, "though Claude did say he would throw it into the sea when we crossed from Dublin for it looked like an old housekeeper"s."

"Claude was in a superfine condition then--in awe of an old Sandhurst comrade. He would be gild enough to see the old brown bag now, poor fellow," said Lady Merrifield, tenderly.

So it went on, with merry chat and a good deal of real preparation, till the early darkness came on, and a great noise in the haul announced the return of "the boys," among whom Lady Merrifield still cla.s.sed her colonel brother. They were muddy up to the eyes, but they had seen a great deal more than was easy to understand in their incoherent accounts. Wilfed had rolled into a wet ditch, and been picked out by his uncle and hung up to dry at a little village inn, where--this seemed to have been the supreme glory--they had made a meal on pigs"-liver and bread-and-cheese before plodding home again--losing their way under Wilfred"s confident pilotage--finding themselves five miles from home--getting a cast in a cart for the two little boys just as Fergus was almost ready to cry--Colonel Mohun and Jasper walking alongside of the carter for two miles, and conversing in a friendly manner, though the man said he knew the soldier by his step, and thought it was a pool-trade. Finally, he directed them by a short cut, which proved to be through a lane of clay and pools of such an adhesive nature that Fergus had to be pulled out step by step by main force by his uncle, who deposited him on some stones at the other end, and then came back to a.s.sist the struggles of Wilfred, who was slowly proceeding with Jasper"s help.

"And that"s the way we make you spend your Christmas holiday, Regie,"

said Lady Merrifield.

"Never mind. Lily; mud was a congenial element to us both in old times, you know, so no wonder your brood take to it like ducks or hippopotamuses. I say, we ought to have come in by the rear. Couldn"t that imp of a b.u.t.tons of yours come and sc.r.a.pe us before we go upstairs?"

"You are certainly grown older, Regie. You never would have thought of that once."

"No more would you, Lily--so do yourself justice."

However, when five o"clock tea was spread in the drawing-room, and the Hacket ladies came in, Constance beheld such a splendid vision of a fine, fair, though sunburnt face, long, light moustaches, and tall figure, that she instantly a.s.sumed her most affected graces, and did not wonder the less that the Mohuns were all so very high.

Dolores"s strong desire for a private interview with her uncle died away when Constance carried off the cheque. She knew he would tell her she had no right to give it, and she did not want to be told so, nor to have any special inquiries made. She was not sorry that an invitation from a neighbour kept him and Hal out shooting all Sat.u.r.day, and, on the other hand, she so far shrank from Constance"s talk about Mr. Flinders as not to be vexed that it was too wet on Sunday afternoon for any going down to Cas.e.m.e.nt Cottages.

It was on that wet afternoon, however, that Uncle Reginald, crossing the hall for once without his tail of followers, saw her slowly dragging downstairs with a book in her hand.

"Well, Miss Doll," he said; "you don"t look very jolly! What"s the matter?"

"Nothing, Uncle Regie."

"I don"t believe in nothing. Here," sitting down on the stairs, with an arm round her, "tell me all about it, Dolly, we are old chums, you know.

Have you got into a row?"

"Oh no!"