On the morrow, at the appointed hour, the real Otterbourne jewels were consigned to the representatives of the Otterbourne bankers, and Hurstmanceaux, like all kind-hearted persons, now that he had got his own way, felt sorry he had been obliged to enforce it, especially as he heard that his sister was unwell, and could see no one. “Poor little Sourisette,” he thought remorsefully. “Perhaps I am too hard on her. She had a beast of a husband. She is more to be pitied than blamed.” Always ready to forgive, he called in Stanhope Street more than once, but she refused to see him. The children told him she was unwell and invisible. Boo came flying down the staircase between the palms and pointsettias in all the glee which to be the bearer of an unpleasant message naturally afforded her. “Mammy says she won’t see you ever any more, uncle Ronald,” said this miniature woman, with much contemptuous dignity. “She would like, if you please, that you shouldn’t speak to her even in the street.” Boo felt very important, standing in the middle of the hall, in her crape frock, with her black silk legs, and her golden cascade of hair on her shoulders, as she delivered herself of this message, and pursed up her lips like two red geranium buds. “Tell your mother that her desires shall be obeyed,” said Hurstmanceaux, and he turned and went out, followed by the saucy echoes of Boo’s triumphant laugh. She never liked her uncle Ronald; she was very pleased to see such a big, tall, grown-up man go away in discomfiture. “You should have said it kinder, Boo,” murmured Jack, from above on the staircase. “Why?” said Boo, with her chin in the air. “He don’t ever give us anything, at least, hardly ever.” “Oh, yes, he does,” said Jack, with remonstrance. “And _she’s_ cruel nasty. She’s took away the Punch, and sent away Harry.” He did not much like his uncle Ronald, but he was sorry for him now that he, too, was dismissed. Hurstmanceaux was sad at heart as he walked down Great Stanhope Street into the Park; he was full of compunction for having, as he imagined, wronged his sister about the jewels, and he was deeply wounded by the unforgiving ingratitude of her feeling toward himself. He had made many sacrifices to her in the past, and although a generous temper does not count its gifts, he could not but feel that he received poor reward for a devotion to her interests which had impoverished him to a degree he could ill support. The day was bright and breezy, the flowers blazed with color, the season was at its height, everyone and everything around him was gay, but he himself felt that cheerless depression of spirit which is born in us of the ingratitude of those we cherish. Katherine Massarene passed him, driving herself a pair of roan ponies. She thought how weary and grave he looked, so unlike the man who had laughed and talked with her as they had gone together over the snowy pastures and the frozen ditches of the hunting country more than two years before.