‘Not a bit of it,’ said Aunt Jane. ‘I know him and all about him. He stayed till his health broke, and now he is one of the most useful men in the country. He is coming to speak for the S.P.G. at Rockquay, Lily; and you must come and meet him and his charming wife. They will tell you a very different story about Harry’s doings.’ ‘Well,’ allowed Mr. Mohun, ‘there are apparitions of brown niggers done up as smart as twopence prancing about the house. Perfectly uninteresting, you know, the savage sophisticated out of his picturesqueness. I made a point of asking no questions, not knowing what I might be let in for.’ ‘Then you heard nothing of Mr. Ward, the Melanesian missionary, whom Phyllis keeps a room for when he comes to New Zealand to recruit.’ ‘The man who was convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence! Oh yes. I heard of him. I believe the labour-traffic agents heartily wish him at Portland still, he makes the natives so much too sharp.’ ‘Aye,’ said the colonel, ‘as long as Britons aren’t slaves they have no objection to anything but the name for other people.’ ‘Wait till you get out there, Regie, and see what they all say about those lazy fellows--except, of course, ladies and parsons, and a few whom they’ve bitten, like May.’ ‘The few are on the Christian side, of course,’ said Lady Merrifield, with irony in her tone. Indeed, she was not at all sure that half this colonial prejudice was not assumed in order to tease her, just as in former times her brother would make game of her enthusiasms about school children; for he was altogether returned to his old self, his sister Jane, who had seen the most of him, testifying that the original Maurice had revived, as never in the course of his married life. Dolores tried to forget or disbelieve the words she had heard about his having come to fetch her away, and said no word about them until they had been unmistakably repeated. Then she felt a sort of despair at the idea of being separated from her aunt and Mysie, for indeed they had penetrated to affections deeper than had ever been consciously stirred in her before. Yet she was old enough to shrink from allowing to her father that she preferred staying with them to going with him, and it was to her Aunt Jane that she had recourse. That lady, after returning from her expedition to bring her sister Adeline to Silverton, was surprised by a timid knock at the door, and Dolores’s entrance. ‘Oh, if you please, Aunt Jane, may I come in? I do so want to speak to you alone. Don’t you think it is a sad pity that I should go away from the Cambridge examination? Could not you tell my father so?’ ‘You want to stay for the Cambridge examination,’ said Aunt Jane, a little amused at the manner of touching on the subject, though sorry for the girl. ‘I have been taking great pains under Miss Vincent, and it does seem a pity to miss it.’ ‘I don’t think it will make much difference to you.’