"'I see so little of her that I am afraid I shall not miss her so much as I ought when she leaves me. It is quite a characteristic of the young people nowadays, is it not, Mrs. de Cressiers, to be happiest away from home with strangers? If girls have parents, they will not be content to live with them.' "I knew she was hitting at me, as well as at Gavine, so I said: "'It depends on the parents, Mrs. Norman. Parents nowadays are always on the look-out for a second marriage, and find their daughters in the way. Gavine and I have had pretty much the same experience.' "Mrs. de Cressiers was quite shocked at my rudeness. "'Respect to parents is dying out,' she said with a little sigh. 'I am afraid Austin does not care for his home.' "'He will be different now when he comes home,' I said consolingly. 'He told me he was thankful he had had his eyes opened, for he had been the biggest fool out. And he means to be a model son, Mrs. de Cressiers. We had a lot of talk together at Christmas time. It will do him good going abroad.' "Then Mrs. Norman began to talk about the parish, and how unfortunate it was that Uncle John had no woman to advise him, and how many mistakes there seem to have been made this Christmas, and then I said—" "My dear Jockie, please spare me any more. It is not interesting or edifying, and if you are going to indulge in such petty, spiteful retaliation with people whom you do not like, you will do yourself more harm than you will do them." Sidney spoke severely. Jockie kissed her impulsively. "Don't be angry with me. She brings out all the evil in me. You always make me feel ashamed of myself. And I honestly own that it was a beastly trick to play her when I took back the wrong letter, but I went down under the temptation." "I could not have believed you would do such a thing," said Sidney, still unappeased. "No; scold me well! I'm awfully repentant. But if I went and confessed it to her, she would be still more furious, would she not? For, of course, she does not know I saw the other letter. I could tell her I knew all about it. Shall I?" "Jockie, are you an imp in disguise? Do you think you are fitted to teach Chuckles?" "No, that I'm not." And this time Jockie spoke quite humbly. "But, oh, Miss Urquhart, I have done you an awful lot of mischief. Gavine says her mother told her that she was thinking of marrying again, and she said that the Major was an honourable kindhearted man. I should hate to have Mrs. Norman enter my family, and if I had left well alone, she would have become Mrs. Austin de Cressiers, and you would have been well rid of her. I never, never shall forgive myself!"