'But this is different, being at Miss Scarlett's, where we go to school. You didn't mind our going to the breaking-up party before the midsummer holiday,' said Jacinth, trembling a little at the irresolution in her aunt's face.
'Oh, I don't mean to stop her going,' said Miss Mildmay. 'It is very nice of you to be so eager for Frances to have the little pleasure. But just warn her, if you can, not to get too intimate with the other girls. It will only cause trouble and annoyance. Frances is an impulsive little creature, but she is old enough to understand that she should be discreet. The worst of any girls' school, even the best, is the chatter and gossip that go on.'
'I have often warned Frances about that kind of thing,' said Jacinth. 'The girls are all very nice and lady-like, but of course we don't see very much of them; it is not as if we were boarders. Francie is more sensible about making friends than she was at first. The only two she really likes very much are the Harpers – Bessie and Margaret Harper – the girls she was speaking of to you.'
'They are nice girls, I believe,' said Miss Mildmay. 'Miss Scarlett told me about them. I don't think we need discourage her friendship with them. After all, any gossip one would dislike is more probable with the other day-scholars, and you have not much to do with them, I think.'
'There are so few compared with the boarders,' said Jacinth, 'and they're all great friends together. I don't think any of them are particularly interesting. Thank you so much, Aunt Alison, for letting Frances go. I'll run and tell her, she will be so delighted.'
And so she was, delighted and grateful, so that she took in good part the little lecture Jacinth proceeded to give her in accordance with her aunt's wish.
'I am careful, I really am, Jass,' she maintained. 'I don't care a bit for any of the day-scholars. They are rather common just because they think they're not, and they do so look down on Miss Green's scholars. It's quite absurd. The only girls I really care for are the Harpers, and – well, a little for Prissy Beckingham, though she's rather silly.'
'It's the day-scholars Aunt Alison doesn't want you to be great friends with,' said Jacinth. 'In a little place like this, there's always a lot of chatter. She knows the Harpers are nice girls.'
'Well, that's all I want,' said Frances, with satisfaction. 'I don't want a lot of friends. Bessie and Margaret are quite enough for me – and you, Jass. If I hadn't any one but you I should be content, especially when you're so very kind to me as you've been to-day.'
And at the appointed time, Frances made her appearance dressed for her garden party, in great spirits, very conscious of the grand effect of her sister's best black silk sash.
'And what are you going to do with yourself, Jacinth?' inquired her aunt, who happened to be crossing the hall at the moment that the two girls came running down – Frances ready to start. 'Are you and Eugene going a walk? or have you lessons to do still?'
'No, I finished them all this morning, and Eugene is tired. I don't quite know what I'm going to do,' said Jacinth.
She was not the least of a complaining nature; she had no thought of complaining just then, but as Miss Mildmay's glance fell on the young figure standing there so interested in her sister's pleasure, it struck her almost for the first time, in any thorough way, that the life with her here at Thetford was somewhat lonely for her nieces, and that it was not by any means every girl of Jacinth's age who would accommodate herself to it so contentedly.
'It is always a pity when parents and children have to be separated,' she said to herself. 'It is unnatural. It should not have to be. From the effects of such a separation in my childhood, I believe I have suffered ever since. It made me hard and unable to understand family life as I might have done.'
And her tone was unusually kind and gentle when she spoke again.
'Would you care' – she began. 'I scarcely think you would, but would you care to come with me for once in a way to our girls' club? I shall be there all the afternoon giving out the lending-library books, and a good many volumes need re-covering. I could find you plenty to do, and we can have a cup of tea there.'
'Oh, I should like to come – very much,' said Jacinth, eagerly.
Miss Mildmay seemed pleased.
'Well, I think I had better make sure of you while I can have you for this one Saturday afternoon,' she said. 'In future I shall not be surprised if you spend Saturdays often with your old lady at Robin Redbreast. I have written to her, Jacinth. I am just going to post the letter.'
'Oh, thank you,' said the girl. – 'Good-bye, Francie; you see I shall not be dull without you,' and the two kissed each other affectionately.
Then Frances, escorted by Phebe, set off, and Jacinth ran up-stairs to get ready for her expedition with her aunt.
CHAPTER V.
AN OLD STORY
That Saturday afternoon passed very pleasantly for both the sisters. Jacinth earned her aunt's commendation by her quick neat-handedness and accuracy, and a modicum of praise from Miss Mildmay meant a good deal. The little misunderstanding of the morning, ending as it had done in making the aunt, an essentially just woman, blame herself for hasty judgment, had drawn her and her elder niece closer together than had yet been the case. And no doubt there was a substratum of resemblance in their natures, deeper and more real than the curious capricious likeness which had struck Marmaduke so oddly – which was indeed perhaps but a casual coming to the surface of a real underlying similarity.
Things were turning out quite other than the young uncle in his anxiety had anticipated.
'If fate had sent me Jacinth alone,' thought Miss Mildmay, 'I rather think we should have got on very well, and have fitted into each other's ways. There is so much more in her than in Frances. I strongly suspect, in spite of her looks, that Jacinth takes after our side of the house – she almost seems older than Eugenia in some ways – whereas Frances, I suppose, is her mother over again.'
But here she checked herself. Any implied disparagement of her sister-in-law she did not, even in her secret thoughts, intend or encourage, for Alison Mildmay was truly and firmly attached to her brother's wife, widely different though their characters were.
'Frances is really only a baby,' she went on thinking. 'There's no telling as yet what she will turn out.'
Jacinth on her side was conscious of a good deal of congeniality between herself and her aunt. It was not the congeniality of affection, often all the stronger for a certain amount of intellectual dissimilarity, or differences of temperament, thus leaving scope for complementary qualities which love welds together and cements; it was scarcely even that of friendliness. It consisted in a certain satisfaction and approval of Miss Mildmay's ways of seeing and doing things. The girl felt positive pleasure in her aunt's perfect 'method;' in the clear and well-considered manner in which her time was mapped out; in the quick discrimination with which she divined what would be the right place and treatment for each girl in her club; even in the beautiful order of the book-shelves and the neat clerk-like writing of the savings-bank entries. It was all so complete and accurate, with no loose ends left about – all so perfect in its way, thought Jacinth, as she cut and folded and manipulated the brown paper entrusted to her charge for the books' new coats, rewarded by her aunt's 'Very nice – very nice indeed, my dear,' when it was time to go home, and she pointed out the neat little pile of clean tidy volumes.
Frances on her side had enjoyed herself greatly. She was the only outsider, otherwise day-scholar, at the garden tea, which fact in no way lessened her satisfaction while it increased her importance.
'I wish you were a boarder, Frances,' said Margaret Harper, the younger of her two friends, as they were walking up and down a shady path in the intervals of the games all the girls had joined in. 'Don't you? It would be so nice, and I am sure we should be great, great friends – you and Bessie and I.'
'And not Jass?' said Frances. 'I shouldn't like to be a boarder unless Jass was too. Then, I daresay, I wouldn't mind.'
'We'd like to be friends with Jacinth too,' said Margaret, 'but Bessie and I don't think she cares very much about being great