‘That was strict, certainly; but you know she sent Mysie too. It was all my own thoughtlessness for detaining them,’ said the good elder sister. ‘I was so grieved!’ ‘Yes,’ said Constance, ‘it sounds all very well to say Mysie was treated in the same way, but in the afternoon Mysie was allowed to go and make messes with blackberry jam, while poor Dolly was kept shut up in the schoolroom!’ Constance did not like Lady Merrifield, who had unconsciously snubbed some of her affectations, and nipped in the bud a flirtation with Harry, besides calling off some of the curates to be helpful. But Miss Hacket admired her neighbour as much as her sister would permit, and made answer-- ‘It is so hard to judge, my dear, without knowing all. Perhaps Mysie had finished her lessons.’ ‘Ah! I know you always are for Lady Merrifield! But what do you say, then, to her prying into all that poor child’s correspondence?’ ‘My dear, I think most people do think it advisable to have some check on young girl’s letters. Perhaps Dolores’s father desired it.’ ‘He never put on any restrictions,’ said Constance. ‘I am sure he never would. Men don’t. It is always women, with their nasty, prying, tyrannous instincts.’ ‘I am sure,’ returned Mary, ‘one would not think a child like Dolores Mohun could have anything to conceal.’ ‘But she has!’ cried Constance. ‘No, my dear! Impossible!’ exclaimed Miss Hacket, looking very much shocked. ‘Why, she can’t be fourteen!’ ‘Oh! it is nothing of that sort. Don’t think about that, Mary.’ ‘No, no, I know, Connie dear; you would never listen to any young girl’s confidence of that kind--so improper and so vulgar,’ said Miss Hacket, and Constance did not think it necessary to reveal her knowledge of the post-office under the cushions at church, and other little affairs of that sort. ‘It is her uncle,’ said Constance. ‘Her mother, it seems, though quite a lady, was the daughter of a professor, a very learned man, very distinguished, and all that, but not a high family enough to please the Mohuns, and they never were friendly with her, or treated her as an equal.’ ‘That couldn’t have been Lady Merrifield,’ persevered Miss Hacket. ‘She lamented to me herself that she had been out of England for so many years that she had scarcely seen Mrs. Maurice Mohun.’ ‘Well, there were the Miss Mohuns and all the rest!’ said Constance. ‘Why, Dolores has only once been at the family place. And her mother had a brother, an author and a journalist, a very clever man, and the Mohuns have always regularly persecuted him. He has been very unfortunate, and Mrs. Maurice Mohun has done her utmost to help him, writing in periodicals and giving the proceeds to him. Wasn’t that sweet? And now Dolores feels quite cut off from him; and she is so fond of him, poor darling for her mother’s sake.’ Tender-hearted as Miss Hacket was, she had seen enough of life to have some inkling of what being very unfortunate might sometimes mean.