Here Milly clasped Grace by the arm, and drew her back a little; perhaps some passing communication from Geoffrey’s eyes had made the younger sister the more keen-sighted of the two for once. Grace turned round a little, moved by her earnestness, and there was the usual consultation by looks between them; the result of which was that Grace’s pale countenance became also suffused with colour; but she held her ground, though her sister drew her back. “I do not think, if you were kind,” she said, “that you would speak so to two girls like us. You would protect us rather from every evil thought. We came here because we have no friends, thinking that they must have been friends to whom papa went on his first day in England: thinking, perhaps, you were relations--somebody who would take a little interest in us. If it is not so, there can be no reason why we should stay.” Geoffrey put out his hand with an eager gesture. “Till my mother comes,” he said. “Young ladies,” cried Miss Anna, “I will tell you what that boy means; he wants to make you out to be the children of a sort of madman who was here some time ago--an impostor: a fellow who gave himself out as--who represented himself to be--a man who has been dead for years. Would you like to have a slur put upon your father, who appears to have been a respectable person?” she added more calmly. She had yielded to an impulse of anger, and had flushed passionately. But at the last words she calmed down, and spoke with distinct and slow utterance, with a slight curl of contempt about her mouth. “Grace, Grace,” cried Milly, “let us go away!” Grace’s face varied every moment as one emotion after another swept over it. “I don’t know what to do,” she said piteously, “Milly”: “But I think there is something to find out,” she added--“I think there is something more!” “If you wish to have your father’s character taken away, and the cheat he attempted found out----” cried Miss Anna, with sudden fury. Then she stopped, seeing the mistake she had made. “I beg your pardon, I am sure,” she went on, with fictitious amiability. “You are making me identify this respectable person from Canada, poor man, for whom I am very sorry--with a wretched impostor, a fellow that never came back, or made the slightest effort to support his ridiculous claim. Of course, if you like to stay till my sister comes back,” she added, “I can have no objection. She is a silly, credulous woman; she will believe any story you like to tell her, so you may give the rein to your invention. But one caution I will give you: say nothing about her son. Make believe, at all events, that you know nothing about her son.” “Oh, Grace, why should we be insulted? What can it matter to us? Let us go away,” Milly cried.