‘No; never mind, you wouldn’t have gone, anyway--hush--’ said Gillian, beginning, it may be, a little sharply, but then becoming dismayed as Valetta, perhaps a little unhinged by the late pleasures, burst forth into such a fit of crying as made everybody look up, and her mother tell her to go away if she could not behave better. Gillian, understanding a sign of the head as permission, led her away, hearing Lord Rotherwood observe,-- ‘There, you cruel party!’ before again becoming absorbed in his letter. ‘Oh dear!’ sighed Fly, turning to Mysie as they rose from table, ‘I am so sorry! It would have been so nice; and I thought we were safe, as mamma had written herself!’ ‘Ah! but my mamma hadn’t accepted,’ said Mysie. Phyllis seemed to take this as final, and sighed, but Mysie presently exclaimed, ‘I say! can’t we all play at Butterfly’s Ball in the hall after lessons?’ ‘Lessons?’ said Fly; ‘but it’s holiday-time?’ ‘Mamma always makes us do a sort of little lesson, even in the holidays, as she says we get naughty. But I suppose you need not; and perhaps she will not make us now you are here.’ Colonel Mohun and Lord Rotherwood were going to Darminster to see what was the state of the investigation about Mr. Flinders. They set out directly after breakfast, and after the feeding of the pets, where Valetta joined them, much consoled by the prospect of the extemporary Butterfly’s Ball at home, Lady Phyllis, with her usual ready adaptability, repaired with the others to the schoolroom, where the Psalms and Lessons were read, and a small amount of French reading in turn from ‘En Quarantaine’ followed, with accompaniment of needlework or drawing, after which the children were free. Aunt Jane was going home to her Sunday school and the Rockstone festivities. She came down for her final talk with her sister just in time to perceive the folding up of three five-pound notes. ‘Lily,’ she said, with instant perception, ‘I could beat myself for what I told you yesterday.’ Lady Merrifield laughed. ‘The girls are very good about it!’ she said. ‘Now you have found it out, see whether that note will make Miss Hacket swallow it.’ ‘Can’t be better! But oh. Lily, it is disgusting! Could not I rig up something fanciful for the children?’ ‘That’s not so much the point. ‘The General’s lady,’ as Mrs. Halfpenny would say, is bound not to look like ‘ane scrub,’ as she would be unwelcome to Victoria, and what would be William’s feelings? I could hardly have accomplished it even with this, and the catastrophe settles the matter.’ ‘You could not get into my black satin?’ ‘No, I thank you, my dear little Brownie,’ said Lady Merrifield, elongating herself like a girl measuring heights. ‘Ada has a larger assortment, as well as a taller person,’ continued Miss Jane, ‘but then they are rather ‘henspeckle,’ and they have all made their first appearance at Rotherwood.’