For the first time Gillian began to see Dolores as Uncle Reginald used to know her, free from that heavy mist of sullen dislike to everything and everybody. It seemed to bring them together, but, in spite of Bessie’s charms, they both continually missed Mysie, out of doors and in, in schoolroom and drawing-room, and, above all, in Dolly’s bedroom. She seemed to be, as Gillian told Bessie, ‘a sort of family cement, holding the two ends, big and little, together;’ and Bessie responded that her elder sister Susan was one of that sort. The evenings now were quite unlike the usual ones. Dinner was late, and the two girls came down to it. Afterwards the young ones sat round the fire in the hall, where Bessie, who was a wonderful story-teller, kept Fergus and Valetta quiet and delighted, either with invented tales or histories of the feats of her own brothers and sisters, who were so much older than their Silverton first cousins as to be like an elder generation. When the two young ones were gone to bed, the others came into the drawing-room, where mamma and grandmamma were to be found, either going over papa’s letters, or else Mrs. Merrifield talking about her Stokesley grandchildren, the same whose pranks Bessie had just been telling, so that it was not easy to believe in Sam, a captain in the navy. Harry and John farming in Canada, David working as a clergy-man in the Black Country, George in a government office, Anne a clergyman’s wife, and mother to the great grandchildren who were always being compared to Primrose, Susan keeping her father’s house, and Sarah, though as old as Alethea, still treated as the youngest--the child of the family. The bits of conversation came to the girls as they sat over their work, and Bessie would join in, and tell interesting things, till she saw that grandmamma was ready for her nap, and then one or other gave a little music, during which Dolly’s bed-time generally came. ‘You can’t think how grateful I am to you for helping to brighten up that poor child in a wholesome way!’ said Lady Merrifield to Bessie, under cover of Gillian’s performance. ‘One can’t help being very sorry for her,’ said Elizabeth, who knew what was hanging over Dolly. ‘Yes, it is a terrible punishment, especially as she has a certain affection for her step-uncle, or whatever he should be called, for her mother’s sake. It really was a perplexed situation.’ ‘But why did she not consult you?’ ‘Do you know, I think I have found out. She held aloof from us all, and treated us--especially me--as if we were her natural enemies, and I never could guess what was the reason till the other day; she voluntarily gave me up all her books to be looked over and put into the common stock, which you saw in the schoolroom.’ ‘You look over all the children’s books?’